Winter Wheat, by Barbara Brooks

Poetry, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Barbara Brooks writes of the passing of her parents beginning with questions she should have asked her parents, then moving on to her mother’s and father’s death. Interspersed are memories of interactions with her parents, bearing a physical resemblance to her mother, and working with her father on projects for her horses. She remembers the many axioms that her father told her while taking on her own projects. At times, she uses the natural world in contrast to the events in their lives and their death. She concludes with sharing how she has taken on some of the attributes of her parents.

The chapbook takes singular moments in her parents’ life and death and presents them with respect and thanks for all that they have given her.

Barbara Brooks, a Pushcart nominee, is the author of three chapbooks, The Catbird Sang, A Shell to Return to the Sea and Watercolors. She has been writing with the same group, Poetfools, for over twenty years. Her work has been published in Deep South Magazine, Stripes Literary Magazine, Backchannels, and Magnets and Ladders among others. When not writing and birdwatching, she volunteers at an adoption kennel. A retired physical therapist, she lives in Hillsborough, NC with her dog, Ricki.