One of the great privileges I had as a writer at Hallmark was the opportunity to enjoy visits from some great guest speakers. One of them was the remarkable Anne Lamott, author of, among other things, the advice to writers titled Bird by Bird.

In a Q&A session following her talk, I asked her how she felt about writing truthfully, according to her, about people she knew. Wasn’t it likely to cause disruption in her most intimate relationships, I wondered.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “They never recognize themselves.”

My mother used to tell the poignant story of the time her mother died. Doris, my mother, a college freshman at the time, was given the responsibility of buying a dress to clothe her mother’s body for burial. As she told it, the dress she selected was the finest dress her mother ever wore. Needless to say, this story stuck in my head and in my heart. Some years later, I wrote the poem below. I sent it home, as a kind of loving tribute. My father wrote me a surprising rebuke. “It sounds like you want to bury your mother!”

Wait. That’s HER mother! That’s HER story! Isn’t it obvious?

Nevertheless, I seldom write poems about people I know, except love poems not for public consumption. When it comes to family and friends, if the poem is complimentary it sounds sappy. If it’s anything else, it sounds judgmental. Either way doesn’t feel right to me. Even if they don’t know it’s them.

IN THE SHOP
 
For D. S. K.
 
I’d like to purchase a dress for my mother—
Something becoming, not overly gay.
Simplicity is more important than stylishness.
You know I’ll wear it forever, she’d say.
 
I’d like an enduring and elegant fabric.
Price is no object—I’m willing to pay
So friends and acquaintances all may admire her
For once richly dressed for her going away.
 
 
Barbara Loots
Published in The Lyric Summer 1975