20/10/2025
Unlocking the Language of Loss: Key Images in Maeve McKenna's, 'Body as a Home for This Darkness' (Book Hub Publishing, 2023).
Poetry often uses recurring images, like powerful keywords, to explore deep emotions and ideas that can be difficult to express directly. These images act as anchors, allowing us to see the world through the poet’s eyes and feel what they feel. This guide will explore three of the most important images in Maeve McKenna's collection; the body, clothing, and the sea, to help you understand her profound exploration of memory, love, and the grief of losing a parent.
The collection, 'Body as a Home for This Darkness', primarily charts the poet's experience with her father's slow decline from dementia and his eventual death. The powerful images we will explore are the tools she uses to make this deeply personal experience feel universal, creating a connection that resonates with anyone who has experienced loss. To begin, let's look at the most central image, which gives the collection its name: the human body.
The Body: A Home for Memory and Decline
In this collection, the body is presented in two powerful and contrasting ways: as a strong, capable vessel in memories of the past, and as a fragile, deteriorating container in the illness of the present. The poet uses her father's physical decline to map the heartbreaking loss of his identity, showing how the self is tied to the physical form.
Seeing the Symbol in Action
Poem Excerpt
The Body in Memory (Strength)
The Body in Illness (Fragility)
From "Him"
> Our wonderful man with metal hands, his huge heart physical inside us.
> his cold feet. Silent him. His human hands grey as putty. In ours.
From "Unknotted Memory"
> His grey flannel trousers rolled knee high, as he steadily wades out...
> I can’t tell from this far if he smiles back or worries. / If he remembers.
From "Heads"
> Him lifting / us over seaweed, carrying / our buckets of crabs...
> your head falls sideways, neck unable to bear the assault inside your skull...
From "Body as a Home..."
> Him mixing grout, mounting tiles.
> your bent frame... nails bitty and yellow... cracked lips...
The Deeper Meaning
By constantly contrasting the father's past and present body, McKenna shows that grief is not just for the person who has died, but also for the strong, vital person who was lost long before death. The memories of his "metal hands" and ability to carry his children make the later images of his "bent frame" and fragile neck all the more devastating. Critically, the body's fragility becomes a map of the mind's deterioration from dementia. The body becomes a living document of what has been lost, both physically and cognitively. McKenna extends this idea of the body as a container to the very clothes her father wore, which become powerful containers for memory.
Clothing: The Fabric of Identity
Clothes in these poems are far more than just fabric; they are tangible symbols of the father's identity, his life's work, and his comforting presence. When the person is gone or fading, these garments are what remain; physical objects loaded with the weight of memory.
Key Items and Their Significance
• The Overcoat & Cardigan:
◦ What it means: These everyday items represent the father's routines and roles. The speaker’s anxious question about the cardigan reveals her desperate need to know he is still being cared for, still himself.
• The Handkerchief:
◦ What it means: The repeated instruction to "Lose your handkerchief" symbolises the father's progressive loss of memory, routine, and finally, his identity. The loss of this simple item mirrors the larger, more tragic losses of dementia.
The Deeper Meaning
By focusing on ordinary items like coats and handkerchiefs, the poet makes the immense pain of loss feel immediate and relatable. We can all understand the feeling of holding a loved one's sweater and smelling their scent. These objects are the last physical things the speaker can cling to as her father's presence and memories fade. While clothing connects the speaker to the tangible past, she uses the vast and powerful image of the sea to explore the overwhelming nature of her emotions.
The Sea: An Ocean of Grief and Memory
Throughout the collection, the sea and water represent the powerful, uncontrollable, and deep nature of both memory and grief. For the speaker, the sea is a place of primal fear, a constant reminder of loss, and, paradoxically, a potential source of final comfort or "home."
The Many Meanings of the Sea
1. A Place of Fear and Overwhelm:
◦ Here, the sea represents the terrifying and overwhelming power of emotion, especially from a child's vulnerable perspective. It is a force of nature that cannot be controlled, much like grief.
2. A Metaphor for Grief:
◦ In this line, the poet directly connects the sea to the experience of loss. It is not a sudden event but a constant, looming presence that shows up in the family's life during its darkest moments.
3. A Final Destination or "Home":
◦ This haunting final line reveals the sea as a potential place of release from pain. It suggests a desire to finally merge with the vastness of her grief and memory, finding a strange and final sense of belonging in the sorrow itself.
The Deeper Meaning
Using the sea allows McKenna to express emotions that are too big for ordinary words. It perfectly captures the feeling of being submerged in sorrow, of being tossed by waves of memory, and of facing something so immense that it feels both terrifying and strangely like a final destination. It is an experience many who have grieved will instantly recognise.
Conclusion: Weaving the Images Together
Maeve McKenna masterfully weaves these three central images together to create a complete and deeply moving portrait of love and loss. She uses the body to show the stark, physical reality of decline and death. She uses clothing to anchor memory in tangible, everyday objects that we can almost feel in our own hands. Finally, she uses the sea to express the boundless, overwhelming emotion of grief that threatens to swallow everything.
Together, these images guide the reader through the poet’s personal experience, allowing us access to what she calls her "secret season" of grief. By learning to see through her eyes, we come to understand not just her loss, but the universal language of love, memory, and sorrow.
- © Susan McKenna, Director, Book Hub Publishing, October 2025.
*Available to buy on our website at www.bookhubpublishing.com
