Pieces of Me
Monique Rardin Richardson
Finishing Line Press (2024)
Reviewed by Dawn Colclasure for Reader Views (07/2024)
Part autobiography and part poetry collection, “Pieces of Me” by Monique Rardin Richardson is a breathtaking and inspirational book of verse that takes readers along through her life where she starts out as a small, scared child and grows into a larger-than-life empowered woman. Filled with poems that share her touching relationships with her mother and grandmother, as well as poems regarding her need for her absent father’s love, dwelling on questions about him. These poems offer a story of love, grief, and self-acceptance.
This is a sweet collection of poems. These are poems that capture the innocence and security of a happy childhood, as well as the love shared between family. It was as though I was in this book, in each poem, as the author was reciting the poem to those it was directed at and, in this exchange, I got to know the author’s life and her family just a little bit better.
The author writes in the poem Abuela Lola that she would rather have “her memory tucked in my mind and heart.” However, she does say how a physical thing (in this case, a quilt) is still a good thing to have because just touching it brings back memories of her Abuela and also the long line of strong women she came from. This is important to note because she was basically raised by her mother and her abuela (grandmother). Her father is not in her life and her poem expresses this sadness, ache, longing, and need for her father which she felt as she was growing up. As she writes in the title poem,
Where was he?
Did I look like him?
Did he love me?
It is possible she learned to accept that he was not going to be a part of her life or that she came to terms with his absence in some way.
She also writes about her struggle to try to find her place in the world as someone who is part Mexican. Despite all the love, nurturing, and support she receives from her family, she feels a sort of isolation because she is not wholly American or wholly Mexican. As she writes in the poem Verdad:
The struggle of being half
in a world that expects whole.
Though she does add “I am—a Mexican … My memories tell me so.” So, in a way, she does come to terms with this, embracing the Mexican side of herself and living fully as a Mexican.
After all of these struggles, these issues, and these times of sadness, she does come to a point of self-discovery and self-love. She writes in the poem Who Should Have Come First:
I awoke … and stepped towards myself.
Her poems about love, loss, grief, and dreams are very heartfelt and touching. Through sensory detail and fleeting images, she shares with us these moments and these memories in a way that brings them to life for us as well. Her pain and loss become our pain and loss through passages of brief glimpses into those who touched her heart before leaving her life forever.
She is very brave to share these personal glimpses of her life with her readers. Her poems are so personal, but that is what makes them all the more meaningful. In a way, her life is told through these poems, and she graciously opens up to readers sharing herself and her life. She writes in the poem Carousel:
I sit before others with a reluctant smile
on my painted face, while words
reappear whispering,Step back, watch life from a distance,
keep the dream in your heart
knowing the music may pause,
but it will never end.
Keep these images to yourself,
my sensitive friend.Yet I continue writing. letting intimate
thoughts drizzle onto the pages
This echoes how women are told to be silent, to keep things to themselves. And this is why that passage from her poem is so powerful because this is her refusing to be silent and refusing to keep everything to herself. This is her standing up against everything that people say and do in trying to get her to behave like someone she is not, and loudly living as herself, without fear or confusion.
“Pieces of Me” by Monique Rardin Richardson is not only a collection of autobiographical poems but it is also a story of one woman’s journey towards self-love and self-acceptance. Written with such beautiful and captivating prose, these poems speak a truth that not many people get to share or have heard in a world that is too loud for testimonies of culture and healing. The poems are enjoyable to read, offering a breath of fresh air in receiving one person’s courageous and inspirational story.