Breathe Here
Breathe Here, Ellie O’Leary’s debut collection of poems, is about living a life for all it’s worth. O’Leary reflects on childhood, family, identity, loss, place, seasons, fluffernutter sandwiches, and being human, especially when it hurts being human. “I stand embraced, like a small island, letting the moist air take me, too,” says the speaker in “Morning Fog,” and that image lingers and sings in my head after reading these beautifully crafted and accessible poems.
—Gary Rainford, author of Salty Liquor and Liner Notes
In her poem “Same Soul”, Ellie asks the river “Where are you going, even though you are always here?” Ellie and I both grew up in Waldo County, in Maine, and, as Ellie says in another poem “Every truth has a backstory.” Every life has a backstory, and Ellie’s rises out of Freedom, Maine--a life of loss, disease, uncertainty, yet a life which sings itself out in poetry, and in beauty. I can feel the place, see it, and I can hear Ellie, telling her truth, but now “living now, in grace and gratitude”. We should be grateful to have these stories, well told, in truth and grace.
—Gary Lawless, poet and co-owner Gulf of Maine Books, Brunswick, Maine
Up Home Again is a tender record of the struggles, regrets and longings of a middle-aged woman as she strives to better her situation, to reclaim rhythms and freedoms that have been lost. O'Leary brings generosity of heart and clear-eyed honesty as she records her efforts to reshape and redefine her life. She is just so incredibly likable. What a beautiful, honest, astute portrait of a life. No epiphanies, no perfect cures. Instead, a life lived carefully, thoughtfully, generously. We come away from this story deeply moved by the tenacity and quiet courage of the writer. Her sharp, dry wit made me laugh out loud. A fine memoir.
Meredith Hall is the author of the memoir Without a Map and the novel Beneficence.
When children lose a parent as a child, as poet Ellie O’Leary describes in her sensitive memoir Up Home Again, (she was ten and her mother 56) it’s significant landmark to live beyond that age. For O’Leary, this time in her life coincides with a great unraveling of work, health, finances, and marriage that leads her to return to face her childhood in a small town in mid-coast Maine. Her memoir moves seamlessly between the lonely girl ‘from away’ in Freedom Village, and her adult self as she wrestles with old insecurities and doubts. O’Leary deep dives into three critical mid-life years to reveal vivid memories, despair, and learning. As she re-discovers Maine’s beauty, and appreciates the steadiness of her family, she is filled with an abundance of gratitude, which will launch her into the satisfying life she lives now as a writer, traveler, teacher, and supportive mother.
As a mid-coast Maine writer, I know the roads O’Leary drives as she explores Maine once more, and I won’t ever drive through Freedom again without thinking of the girl, in her plaid skirt and knee socks, living next door to the principal who would support her getting into Bates College. When I pass the small post office, I’ll imagine her eruptive joy on getting her financial aid packet that meant she was really on her way. Up Home Again is an authentic chronicle of coming full circle, and we cheer her on to a well-lived life.
Elizabeth W. Garber is the author of two memoirs, Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter (2018) Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Daring Year (2022) and three books of poetry. She is a previous Poet Laureate of Belfast, Maine, where she has a private acupuncture practice.