After All

After All by Pat Daneman is the chronicle of a woman’s ordinary life. Girls wonder what it is their mothers do all day, only to learn the truth when they become mothers themselves. Siblings torment each other. Lovers enchant and disappoint. The dead never quite leave. Along the way there is sex and grief, anger and tenderness, as Daneman explores what it means, after all, to have been a daughter, a wife, a mother. The poems are like snapshots, capturing moments otherwise lost. After All is about growing up and growing old, getting along with family and getting by alone.