Storyteller and Book of the Week

Mary Ellen Talley and “Taking Leave (Kelsay Books 2024)”

  

Cover photo: Mary Ellen Talley, 4, and her older sister, Katherine

Born and raised in Spokane, Washington, Mary Ellen Talley migrated to Seattle. She earned a graduate degree from the University of Washington, after which she spent forty rewarding years as a speech-language pathologist (SLP).

Poetry has become her second act. She is active in Pacific Northwest poetry circles and contributes book reviews to several journals.

Her poems have received three Pushcart nominations and her first chapbook, Postcards from the Lilac City, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have been published in such journals as Deep Wild, Eco Theo, Ekphrastic Review, Gyroscope, and Inflectionist Review, as well as in anthologies such as Sing the Salmon Home and Raising Lilly Ledbetter.

Over the years, Mary Ellen has been fortunate to benefit from Pacific Northwest poetry workshops, particularly Poets on the Coast writing retreats with Susan Rich and Kelli Russell Agodon, as well as many classes taught at Seattle’s Hugo House.

She has learned much from skilled and generous teachers, especially Deborah Woodard, Judith Skillman, Carolyne Wright, Sierra Nelson, John Sibley Williams, Judith Roche, Holly J. Hughes, and Sheila Bender. Sandra Yannone’s Cultivating Voices online community has widened her poetry horizons. She is forever grateful to her critique groups, particularly her fifteen years of weekly meetings with the Greenwood Poets, founded by Sharon Cumberland.

Mary Ellen enjoys spending time with her children and grandchildren, bicycling, baking, hiking, and attending live theatre and poetry events with her husband, Ken, her first and trusted reader.

Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

A big fan of Mary Ellen Talley’s poetry, I fell in love with this powerful poignant collection of poems, “Taking Leave,” dedicated to her sister, Katherine who died of cancer in September 2023 after six months in Hospice in Texas. 

The poems are also delightful and uplifting as they celebrate her older sister’s life and their relationship.

I admire Mary Ellen’s strength in writing these poems and publishing them while her sister was dying and having the strength to publicize the book in the midst of a dear friend, Kathy, dying of cancer and attending her vigil and funeral.

“The box of books arrived the day of my friend's vigil before the funeral and I still have to open the box,” Mary Ellen writes. “Intellectually I'm excited, but emotionally I'm crawling out of grieving. My husband had a heart attack right before Christmas and then we had two friends dying.”

I’ll let praise from poets and her poems tell her story.

Holly J. Hughes, author of Hold Fast, writes:

"In a series of elegies to her twelve-years-older sister and niece, Mary Ellen Talley’s collection Taking Leave captures the vibrant lives of two beloved family members and the spirit of the generation who’s now taking leave. Employing a variety of poetic forms—acrostic, duplex, haibun, palindrome, villanelle—and in many moving poems of address, Talley vividly recreates the history that shaped her sister’s life—and subsequently, her own. “You are leaving vital signs,” she writes to her sister, and shows us how, through these fine poems, to "give homage to what’s left.”

Kelly Sargent, author of Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion and Echoes in My Eyes writes:

"Mary Ellen Talley’s heartfelt poetry collection offers a window into the lives of two sisters born twelve years apart as they navigate lives begun in the Lilac City, and one bravely nears her end in Texas." She also writes poignantly about the loss of her niece, and shares family advice on coping with grief: “When you get to the end of your rope / tie a knot and hang on.” Talley skillfully balances sobering threads of the Vietnam War, alcoholism, cancer, and hospice with times of celebration and humor, all woven within the security blanket of family love and hometown roots. Taking Leave inspires us to reflect on our own connections and draw strength from the memories and legacies of loved ones as “saying goodbye becomes music and breath.”

Susan Rich, Blue Atlas, Red Hen Press, has this to say:

"Sisterhood, birds, and the cosmos are just some of Mary Ellen Talley’s obsessions in her moving new collection, Taking Leave". And as readers, we are thrilled to enter these poems where there we find a “kaleidoscope of women celebrating, where you and I are still under warranty.” The death of Talley’s sister and the shock of her own older body are two ballasts that keep this book grounded. In-between these signposts I find imagery that continually delights: galaxies, bicycles, an oil can, and even pinhole stars. This is a book I look forward to reading again and again.

You Are From

You are from the same Lilac City Spokane
that I’m from—only you were born in 1938,
with a twelve-year head start on me.

You are from playing in Junior Symphony,
your violin to Fredene’s cello and my later violin,
not to mention brother Jim’s never-ceasing football.

You are from our Montana farm girl mom, who
almost drowned at fifteen when North Central teacher,young Miss Pinkham, said to jump in the deep end.

By the time old Miss Pinkham taught your PE class
at North Central High, you said she was as legendary
as the 1908 building’s red brick stature.

You are from singing The Birth of the Blues
at North Central’s annual Doll Shop production,
where I swallowed a nickel at intermission.

You are from buying four-year-old me a dress
when Grandpa Pilik took you on the train
to meet his Chicago sisters.

You are from sewing that puffy-pink flower girl dress I wore for your wedding at St. Francis of Assisi, just before Mom and Dad began their eight-year separation.

You are from that hellish year, while your husband
flew Medivac helicopters in Vietnam, you parenting
alone in Alabama. Snail-mail letters your only contact.

You are from carrying bits of fabric and paint chips
for home décor, and your purse with damp washcloth
to wipe your children’s faces in pre-towlette years.

When I babysat your kids, you insisted on paying me,
although Mom, who rode the bus to teach, said
it was payback for you driving us hither and yon.

When my boyfriend sent roses the summer I visited
you in Alabama, you predicted a future wedding.
You are from being matron of honor in my wedding

and not attending Dad’s funeral at St. Francis of Assisi
because your family did an intervention on you.
No liquor since 1987. I raise a glass to you with pride.

You are from mailing fudge to us every Christmas
and from the crèche set we still use
that you gave me and Ken our first married Christmas.

You are from fake fingernails and your own bionic
years: new hip and knee, hearing aids, dentures, pace-
maker, oxygen, and Amulet to prevent a stroke.

You are from smoking for 33 years and now cancer
swinging the grim reaper’s scythe. Not your style,
no sitting on the pity pot. You are leaving vital signs.


We Had Two Different Mothers

You say that you’ve been thinking,
and declare that you and I,
twelve-years apart,
(like varied thrush and robin,)
actually had two different mothers.
Yours wore aprons, used Crisco for lotion,
and only wore lipstick for PTA
or Girl Scout meetings—whereas my mom
wore hose and sensible dresses
on weekdays after she went back to teaching
the day I began first grade.
I agree but point out I never knew my mom
to attend school meetings
and at the one Blue Bird meeting I do recall
she fretted when I commented
on the youth of all the other mothers.

Come to think of it, dear sister,
as the last of four,
didn’t I also have a different father?
When you were growing up
Dad presided over his horrid castle.
When I turned six, he moved out,
yet kept up appearances at church
so I could be taught by nuns.
Only periodically did his drinking
breathe fire, spew rocks like a dragon.
By the time Mom and Dad
moved back together
they split all costs, groceries,
utilities, and my clothing to the dime.
As child observer, I watched
the coffers of their aging love unlock.


Stairway to Hospice Heaven

My sister calls to ask if I know the flight arrangements
her son has made, how she tried to call him but his phone
went to message. She needs to know how she’ll get to the airport, and whether to bring more than a carry-on bag.

In a few minutes I realize she’s confusing flight time
with when she’ll depart this earth—logic blurred by morphine.

I’m overhearing grandkids and my husband in the other room
as they watch Dora the Explorer. I struggle to utter
the “d” word as I ask if she’s afraid of dying. The Katherine of old responds, Well, of course, I am. Wouldn’t you be?

She goes on to say she believes in a God of love and forgiveness, but isn’t sure if God promises heaven. Long chat—sky darkens—we hang up. It dawns on me that my force-field sister wonders whether she’ll advance past St. Peter’s ledger
to make it inside the pearly gates. I call her back, speak ever so
clearly into her ear: Katherine, you are going to heaven.

She needs to know just as sure as Black Eyed Susans
and Purple Coneflowers can grow in her spent Texas soil,

just as sure as she asks her daughter-in-law
to order a new set of fake fingernails—because a dying
fashionista does have standards, you know.
Twenty minutes later she calls again.

I’m tempted to skip the call because I’m settling grandkids—
I answer to hear Katherine thank me for our prior conversation

and speak a quick good night as I stand gobsmacked
by the generosity of the dying.


1956 Play List

While I was learning to ride
Fredene’s old Schwinn, you were
Swinging on a Star with Perry Como.
Dad worked the railroad
but your top pick was Tennessee Ernie Ford
singing Sixteen Tons about a coal miner.
You mimicked Doris Day
singing Que Sera Sera, Whatever Will Be, Will Be,
and held fake mikes with Fredene
as you two teens harmonized Sincerely
with The McGuire Sisters.
In truth, The Platters sang and you told me
you’ve always been The Great Pretender.
It was after WWII—Ike was President
and Patti Page hoped That Doggy
in the Window was for sale.
Eddie Fisher crooned Around the World.
He hadn’t yet ditched Debbie
for Liz and Tony Bennett hadn’t left
his heart in San Francisco.
Bing Crosby moved from Spokane
and Grace Kelly became royalty
while they honeymooned
in black-and-white singing True Love.

Elvis’s hip swivel on Hound Dog
and Heartbreak Hotel ushered in rock’n’roll.
Little Richard pounded out Long Tall Sally
and good-natured Perry Como cheered us
with Hot Diggity, Dog Ziggity. Love came true
when Fats Domino found his thrill on Blueberry Hill.
How you sang and sang with the Chordettes.
Could their Mr. Sandman be your swan song?
You’d prefer that decorum to hearing Bill Haley
and His Comets belt out See You Later, Alligator.


Dear Katherine,

Li-Young Lee wrote,
“There are days we live as though
death were nowhere in the background.”

Do you remember the end of summer
when I canned a box of Elbertas
as a birthday gift for Mom?

Her smile was luminous enough
to make her forget her folly
to fall in love with Dad.
Like a jar of peaches,
love may last for years
after the lid pop seal in a boiling water bath,
the rocking roil of canned fruit,
minus stones.

P.S.
I used to call you on
Mom’s birthday
just to reminisce.
I can’t do that now.