NEWS RELEASE
CREATIVE AGING BOOKS AND IDEAS
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Poet essayist and biographer, Molly Peacock’s new book, The Widow’s Crayon Box, (WW Norton, 2024), mirrors the singular and amazingly spirited person that she so aptly exemplifies and channels.
After a 28-day ritual of continuous crying after her beloved husband, Michael Groden’s death in 2021, Peacock realized that the mosaic of emotions she was awash with — grief, anger, joy, devastation, and hope —were illuminating symbols that would light her new way of life forward in the most unexpected of ways.
To Peacock, it felt like her very psyche was being reimagined, both brightly and subtly painted by the mirage of 152 crayons commonly found in a ubiquitous Crayola crayon box.
Her new state of widowhood did not match Peacock’s initial preconceived notions as to what this state of being looked like — in fact, what it would feel like and be like. She found that there was a discernible difference between being “a bereaved wife and a bereaved widow.” That indeed, the definitive space that is grief held some surprisingly diverse emotions.
And so, as a person whose very life is epitomized by the creativity of the written word, Peacock set about writing her personal and remarkable experiences around being a widow by way of a sequence of poems divided into four segments: After, Before, When and Afterglow.
The honesty, rawness and on-display-emotions in so many of Peacock’s poems allow those of us who have not experienced this life event a poignant view into what it is like. And for those who are going through the experience, Peacock gifts the permission to feel and experience any and all of the emotions that are being personally felt, without the guilt of not adhering to cultural and societal norms.
What a welcome relief!
The subject matter of the prose-like poems in Peacock’s The Widow’s Crayon Box are gloriously disparate and oft times witty. In The Lift, we read about the rush by Peacock and her wheelchair-bound husband to get to the elevator to push the button before a stranger can.
“But we get there! The metal coat opens to whisk us in.”
In The Plexiglas Wall, Peacock says, “I grab my guilt, zap it into a quilt.”
The similarities between being a mother and a caregiver are tabled: “How exhausting it is to mix the roles up.”
And Peacock goes even further as she explores with unabashed frankness the challenges of being a caregiver.
“Is there Stage Four Caregiver PTSD?” she wonders.
How refreshing and comforting Peacock makes it for all of us as she encourages a wide open and frank dialogue surrounding this unfamiliar state of discomfort and isolation, making it OK for those going through it to openly talk about it.
Creative Aging Books & Ideas is hosting Molly Peacock, next Thursday, Nov. 28 at 2 p.m. Peacock will be in conversation with Cece Scott and will read from her new book, The Widow’s Crayon Box.
To read Cece’s full review of Peacock’s new book and to register for this free event and your opportunity to chat with the poet, click here: THE WIDOW’S CRAYON BOX, by Molly Peacock – cecescott.com
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