POETIC LICENSE

A poet’s daughter examines her father’s legacy.

The American poet Richard Eberhart, who died in 2005 at the age of 101, was the recipient of many of the literary world’s greatest accolades. A long-term poet-in-residence at Dartmouth College, an inductee of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the United States Poet Laureate under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and the recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Eberhart was a highly lauded poet of his age. As his daughter, Cherington, recounts in her memoir, he operated at the center of a large literary circle that included such legendary poets as Allen Ginsberg, Richard Wilbur, and Anne Sexton. The author recounts her own novel experiences with these poets while also reflecting on her father and the challenges that she says that she faced after a childhood spent under his roof. Cherington’s portrait of her father is unsparing, and it includes a disturbing description of an instance of sexual abuse when she was 17; she also writes of other, earlier instances when she was physically abused by a family friend. Cherington writes that she worked throughout her life to process these events in addition to trauma associated with her mother’s epilepsy, and she recounts this effort with grace and clarity. Drawing from her own experiences as well as Eberhart’s ample archive at Dartmouth’s Rauner Library, the author offers compelling anecdotes and analysis. Her writing on her mother’s illness is particularly potent, as Cherington interweaves scenes of childhood terror with an adult awareness of the stifling silence that made her fear impossible to soothe. Her narrative is occasionally muddled by scenes of her professional life as a consultant and moments of awkward conversation; one such instance occurs in an otherwise charming scene in which the author goes dancing with a romantic partner. At the end of the evening, she whispers in his ear the clichéd phrase, “How’d we ever find each other in this godforsaken town?” Despite this, Cherington’s memoir presents a persuasive account of her effort to reckon with the past.

A contemplative memoir that talks about abuse and its aftermath.