Hillbilly Madonna

by Sara Moore Wagner

Sara Moore Wagner's "Hillbilly Madonna" is a harrowing and ultimately hopeful lens into rural life and the opioid crisis. Rendered with crucial honesty, these poems center women's experiences in Appalachia and reveal their often-overlooked stories and perspectives. Simultaneously tender and biting, "Hillbilly Madonna" ushers in a vital new voice in poetics, one that will stick with readers far beyond the wooded foothills of Ohio.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2022

Reviews

[Jayne Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not cerebral enough to rate/review poetry. My book club friends who are thought it was great. The focus is on Appalachian culture, drug use, and family dynamics.

Update: I decided to go ahead a give it a rating for the sake of being a ratings completionist. I’m glad it was a book club pick, but most of it went over my head.

[Susan Muth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing

[Chimen Georgette Kouri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down one of the best poetry collections I've ever read.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Invent / a tale with me to replace / the truth of it all. Help me undo / our childhood like an old corset," so the speaker of the poem Old Wives Tale, one of my favorite lines in this collection full of such memorable lines, great beginnings, and great endings. It tells its tales in image-rich poetry, which borrows from myths and fairytales in all their unfiltered brutality, to break free of the centrifugal force the past can have and break open its established "truths." Hillbilly Madonna builds a mosaic of the speaker's coming of age in Appalachia and coming to grips with difficult events in her life, as much for herself as for the reader it seems. Beautiful, compelling storytelling in poems full of the physicality of their place and the bodies (alive and dead) in it.

[Laura Eppinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection! My full review is here: https://vagabondcitylit.com/2022/10/1...

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous poems rooted deeply in her Appalachian landscape, with particularly heartbreaking ones about a family member’s struggle with addiction, and a father’s illness. Also, don't miss the fantastic interview at the end, "Breaking Cycles."

I dog-eared too many to share here but here are a couple images:

from Old Wives Tale:
Help me undo/our childhood like an old corset...

from Heroin as Jack the Giant Killer
When you come into his yard with your long feet,
long nosed, big-breasted, full of holes, he will trap
you like an ant under a glass, aim the sun
in on you until fire.

from Let's Wait to Bathe Her
People say you can heal
your childhood through
this child.I take her
into the cabin he abandoned
me in, forest-thick
girl incased in cream,
undressing in whatever
light, a beam of gold a thread--
maybe I can be what she needs,
or else, what I see
when I look in the mirror--
clean.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many memorable poems, so charming and also disarming. Sara Moore Wagner is the queen of using our traditionally, worldly stories to crack open our real lives today.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title alone deserves five stars, but the poems are great too.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Let women be flawed. Let mothers be flawed. Then, let them be redeemed.”

Hillbilly Madonna is a masterclass of imagery, point of view, and character in poetry. Like, if you want to get into poetry books, the nuance and essay-like qualities it can bring to life, READ THIS. I’m already a big poetry book fan, so I underlined at least five lines in every poem and I marked up my chapter index because I wanted to make sure I could remember the best poems.

This is an amazing book of poetry. Every poem hits your heart. If you’re from Appalachia, this starts up a vortex of memories. No longer are you just a heel that Vance used to get ahead and get sympathy. You’re actually seen. Sarah Moore Wagner sees you because she was you. If you aren’t from these types of places, I think this could open your eyes. It presents a fact that you can’t homogenize us. Every Appalachia is a different one. West Virginia vs Ohio vs Kentucky….etc.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ultimately, I see this as a book about breaking cycles [of poverty, abuse, addiction, toxic miasms]. For better or worse, I needed to show the cycle in order to get the hope of breaking it to come at the end. We are not chained to our tragedies and weakness.” —Sara Moore Wagner

“When I stop
shaking, when you let me
sit next to the fire, next
to you, you’ll want
to ask me how. I’ll only say
the word ‘rupture’; my skin
is this blank page I fill
with batting, wound
after wound
after wound.”
—from “Witch’s Mark”

Favorite Poems:
“Fit to Be Tied”
“Passing It On”
“Girlhood Landscape”
“Gross Negligence”
“American Anesthetic”
“Petrified Figure after CPS”
“Witch’s Mark”
“Blood from a Turnip”
“Birth Story”
“Girlhood Schism”
“On Cutting Him Off”
“Forgetting the Dust of Her”
“Scheduled Induction”
“Elements of Decay”
“Like the World Could Bend and Fall with Us”
“Here Is the World Father Built”

[Priscilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are many poems in this book that kept me. But I tell you, get your hands on this book even if you don't like poetry. The "afterward," which is an interview of Sara Moore Wagner, held me as much as the stronger poems in the collection. Wagner's observations about how women and girls are treated vis-a-vis addiction compared to men are riveting, thoughtful and intelligent.

[Melissa Helton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the type of collection where I found myself saying "damn" and looking up from the book at the end of many of the poems. So so good. The poems take us through drug abuse, addiction, and recovery on a personal level, all while showing us the destruction of the opioid crisis on a regional scale.

[Julia Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful and heartbreaking. Hopeful yet full of sorrow. If you love poetry, this author will gut you and then hug you. It’s so good. I’m not a writer, but maybe my words made you think this is for you. Check it out.

[Ash · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forgettable.

[Lauren Phillips · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some parts of this made me nauseous... I found two of the poems interesting, but most of the others I was not a fan of or the vivid images were unsettling.

[Halley Cotton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely collection at-home in its Appalachian voice. Loved it

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pending Changes" is incredible, but many of the poems in this collection are strong.

[Katie Kvochick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A somber Appalachia. I like the way she writes; the letters dancingly strung together across the paper.