The Disappearing Room

In Mara Bergman’s first full collection, the poet travels from the tenements of New York City to the Sussex countryside, from childhood to motherhood, and beyond. Through a wide range of subjects – steelworkers and young apprentices, photographs and photograms, dolls in a local museum’s hidden collection – she writes with a keen sense of time and place. These are probing poems, seeking to discover; poems with a sense of urgency. Here are poems about love, loss, friendship, family, fitting in and, ultimately, acceptance. They are infused with wonder and provide a fresh way of looking at the world.