Father Elegies by Stella Hayes Review by Shannon Vare Christine

Father Elegies by Stella Hayes

Review by: Shannon Vare Christine

Publisher: What Books Press

Publication Date: October 15th, 2024

ISBN 9798990014930

Page #: 126

Separated into three distinct sections named for three distinct yet interconnected emotions or states of being, Stella Hayes introduces the reader to her work Father Elegies in an exacting manner. The feelings and familial experiences that Hayes addresses in this volume can also be read as a three-act play, in which the speaker journeys through her stages of grief. The speaker grapples with her father’s illness, her family’s immigration, genealogical ties, and more, all via the lenses of NESCHASTIYE (misfortune), PAHA (wound), and отчаяние (despair). The Russian word is placed at the top of each section break title page, while the English equivalent is at the bottom. This forces the reader to reflect on the white space between these two noun forms, and to weigh out the possibilities of what is said in subsequent lines, or on the contrary what is left unwritten here. Does this space serve to emphasize the privacy that the speaker maintains while grieving her father, or a symbolic burial? Is this a visual representation of the speaker’s physical move and linguistic development, from Kyiv to America? Or might this choice highlight her dual disparate backgrounds, as well as the speaker’s reality and her interpretations of it? These structural and stylistic choices engage the reader in the speaker’s process of inquiry set against the larger backdrops of war, identity, parentage, grief, and reconciliation.

The beginning of this book is set in Hayes’ hometown of Kyiv, which at that time was still part of Russia. It was there that her father “would siphon off electricity from the electric grid, / So that we could have what was left of enlightenment.” This vivid imagery continues as the speaker transports us: “Russian vinyl records were heard from the turntable, / The one you would crank up…that drowned / Out the stew’s song simmering…” With every spare or harsh detail that describes their difficult lifestyle, an accompanying underlying phrasing captures the simultaneous tenderness and beauty of her childhood. There is a sense that Hayes is writing down these pieces of her family history to preserve them for her posterity, much like the scene in the “Root Cellar.” There, the shelves are lined with “tomatoes / With skin ruinous / as you take it to the mouth,” and the accompanying lines of this poem are staggered like the shelves housing the canned goods. This cellar “was divided / Into a multitude of parcels like the vineyards / In the Côte d’Or” reminiscent of her father’s heart chambers, a storage of another variety. The stark contrast between her Kyiv life and her American one is apparent as the speaker is met there with “A refrigerator full — / Of America, / lined with large-scale manufactured foods / Lacking you Father, to show me the way.” Not only does the speaker have to grieve her stuffed animals, her childhood home, her friends, and all she leaves in her home country, but she likewise has to lament her father who remains behind.

The speaker delves into the process of grieving and memorializing a loved one who is such an essential part of the living person’s being. Her father had such a profound influence on her upbringing and sense of self, as he “would curate me as your daughter, molding my heart…” So now where does that leave her moving forward, if she remains emotionally connected to her father? The poems “His Song” followed by “Her Song” seek to reinforce their father-daughter interconnectedness, as well as to keep the speaker’s native language and culture in sync with her formative American identity. As the book unfolds, the speaker continues to confront her worries over losing her language and culture, which is what keeps her ties with her father alive. Another pair of poems, “Love on the X-Axis” and “Love on the Y-Axis” seeks to give logical explanations for grief, as if principles of mathematics can adequately quantify the speaker’s heartbreak. Furthermore, the prolific use of interrogative sentences, and the word if, certainly underscores the fact that this speaker is going to analyze and investigate every facet of her life, in her quest for understanding. This is evident in the final three lines of “Love on the X-Axis”:

If you fail			To understand my			Impoverished Russian
				       I will relearn it in twilight                       That you existed —,  
			That, one day, will be enough for me

However, the future “one day” referenced here has not yet arrived in the present tense. Her hunt must continue.

 After exhausting the fields of logic and math, the speaker turns to literature and philosophy, and the truths held in the works of Zhivago, Shakespeare, Virgil, and Plato. She is at once “fatherless, I am in my heart not speaking / any language” while also “The self, unmade overnight, / stubbornly clinging to symmetry / of stanzas.” The speaker begins to notice her mother’s fear, yet also her strength, as the speaker reimagines her life without her father’s colorful commentary and teachings. With such a focus on her father for quite some time, and in light of his absence, her mother can rise to the foreground of her life. Surely, the speaker will need a fresh muse to turn to for worldviews, mentorship, and affection as “mother’s motherness would penetrate the seams of my bedsheets.”

All the while, throughout this collection, the speaker grapples with the contradictory forces that are pushing and pulling her, attracting and repelling her. She is constantly splitting herself into two halves: one is the part of her that belongs to her alone, while the second half is the portion of her that is shared willingly, or taken violently. There is such dualism in the experiences that Hayes is either burying or exhuming, grieving or celebrating, fearing or resolving. Her language, father, and homeland are slipping further away from her, despite her attempts to hold onto them all. “My children / know my voice. Would I recognize his—” is a profound expression of polarity, as she wonders what else she stands to lose. Her father’s voice and her memories may only last for so long.

Hayes utilizes inventive and eclectic ways to mold poetic forms, varied punctuation, and page orientation to not only convey her experiences and reflections but also to invoke a conversation. While this dialogue begins with her and her father, it soon extends to her mother, then her background, and ultimately to the reader, as well. She uses the poems in this book to reclaim her narrative and reckon with the physical violence imposed on her. After all, “The yoke is still a yoke. The hand that writes / out its own destiny. Clause linked to clause.” Hayes’ poetic forms appear whole at times, and at others, they are broken wide open, much like her emotions, life, body, and memories. The speaker begins to find ways to bring her father into her American life, “Deep in my heart, we are home / I introduce you to my family.” She brings home lilies of the valley, plants them, and gives them time to grow, similar to the forgiveness that has to bloom in its own time. And then “Years later uncovering the family / car from snow. You were returned to us.” This occasion signals to the reader and offers reassurance that the speaker’s unearthing of her father is the first of more acceptances she is yet to soon discover.

Stella Hayes is the author of two poetry collections, Father Elegies What Books Press, 2024) and One Strange Country (What Books Press, 2020). She grew up in Brovary, a suburb outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Hayes earned an M.F.A. in poetry from NYU, where she taught in the undergraduate creative writing program and served as poetry editor and assistant fiction editor of Washington Square Review. Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, The Poetry Project, Four Way Review, Stanford University Press, and Spillway, among others. Hayes is a contributing editor at Tupelo Quarterly.

Shannon Vare Christine is a poet, teacher, and critic living in Bucks County, PA. She is an alumnus of The Community of Writers and Tupelo Press 30/30 Project. Her poems are featured in various anthologies and publications, and her manuscript, Chrysanthemum, was a finalist for publication by The Word Works. Additionally, her poetry reviews and literary criticism were published or are forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review, The Lit Pub, Cider Press Review, Sage Cigarettes, Compulsive Reader, The Laurel Review, Vagabond City, Tupelo Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Harbor Review, and Uirtus. Archived writing and more can be found at  www.shannonvarechristine.com, her periodic newsletter, Poetic Pause, and on Instagram @smvarewrites.

25 June 2025