Archive · 18 Sep 2026
Poems Explore Abuse, Grief, Memory, Faith, and Inherited Wounds
These poems are about a daughter remembering difficult experiences with her family.
Some memories involve a mother, dance, illness, and death.
The daughter feels hurt because adults who should protect her sometimes cause pain.
She also remembers love, such as music, flowers, gardens, and hair being braided for school.
One poem uses a dying plant to show how grief and neglect can grow over time.
Another describes seeing reminders of a dead mother even when she is far away.
The poems also ask whether famous stories about love, religion, and beauty hide suffering.
Together, they show how writing can preserve memories that are painful and difficult to forget.
The poems portray a daughter navigating emotional abuse, family conflict, grief, and memory.
“Dancing Lessons With Ma” connects Bharatanatyam with fear, bodily pain, and a mother who does not respond.
“Elegy for Our Garden” uses a dying money plant and spiderweb to reflect neglect, loss, and strained family relationships.
“Another Failed Elegy” describes grief for a mother affected by Alzheimer’s and the distance separating the daughter from her death.
Other poems question romanticized cultural stories, religious certainty, patriarchy, and the violence hidden within family histories.
- Who
- An unnamed daughter and narrator, her mother and other family members, and author Gauri Awasthi.
- What
- A series of poems about emotional abuse, family trauma, grief, memory, religion, gender, and cultural inheritance.
- When
- The publication dates are not provided; individual poems previously appeared in Punch Magazine, Honey Literary, and Provincetown Arts Magazine, while the excerpt comes from Mother Wound.
- Where
- The poems move among family homes, a dance room, a New York subway station, the Taj Mahal, and other remembered places.
- Why
- The poems recount and examine the daughter’s experiences of abuse, loss, strained family relationships, and the persistence of memory.
- Author
- Gauri Awasthi
- Book
- Mother Wound
- Dance form
- Bharatanatyam
- Featured monument
- The Taj Mahal
- Previously published
- “Elegy for Our Garden” appeared in Punch Magazine; “Another Failed Elegy” appeared in Honey Literary; “Self Portrait with the Taj Mahal” appeared in Provincetown Arts Magazine.
- Central themes
- Emotional abuse, grief, family conflict, memory, religion, gender, and inherited trauma
- Publisher
- Trio House Press