The Sharpening

This Sharpening is Ellen Dore Watson's fourth collection of poetry. Watson navigates the fierce terrain of marriage, divorce, love, and longing. In these pages the pain of loss contrasts with the pleasures of motherhood when a long marriage ends. These poems map with unflinching attention the unraveling of a marriage and the persistence of longing, but also chronicle the quotidian joys of the mothering life and the scissor grip on reality it demands, the balance it can restore.