“Aporia”

Poems by Eric E. Hyett

In “Aporia,” the debut poetry collection by Eric E. Hyett, the poet struggles with a psychic predicament: how to guide his mother (poet Barbara Helfgott Hyett) through the ravages of early-phase Alzheimer’s Disease, while preserving both her dignity and her literary legacy. Organized chronologically to span exactly one year, the poems in “Aporia” recount a balletic narrative between the speaker and his mother, both of them trying to understand what has happened. Over the course of the year, what started out as shock gives way to grief, as both Hyett and his mother begin to move toward acceptance. 

In Aporia, one poet, Eric E. Hyett, laments another poet he loves, his mother, through the seasons of her descent into dementia. His love, humor, and humility spring from the first poem when Hyett declares himself both the mayor and the village idiot in the world of his mother’s care. Barbara Helfgott Hyett’s voice is clear as well: her humor in “Redemption is Not Yet Complete”, “…who used to hand me a five-dollar/bill each time we parted/and say here’s/fi dallahs” and her inimitable bluntness in “The Rest of the Coffee” as she speaks of how this insidious disease has transformed her world, Well, I hate it. These poignant poems convey the way Hyett and his mother have had to find a different ballet, new gestures, and different arrangements in a relationship altered by Alzheimer’s where he says with clarity, I’m the parent now. 

- Sarah Dickenson Snyder (Poet/Author of “With A Polaroid Camera,” “Notes From A Nomad” and “The Human Contract”)

In a landscape springing from the long-term sequelae of Alzheimer’s, Eric Hyett is the rain. His mother, poet Barbara Helfgott Hyett, is the pavement. No, is that right? As seasons in Aporia unravel, Eric’s mother is suddenly the rain, and he is “completely alone / in the village of unsolicited advice.” With brilliant vulnerability, these poems illustrate transformations of identity in the context of disease – the blurrings of mother and son, patient and caregiver, poet and poet, the rain and the moon. “You’re responsible for all / of this, as she takes my wrist. // Unfortunately, that’s true, I tell her. // My mom says: Well I hate it. // I would hate it too.” This collection is critical for any family confronted by Alzheimer’s diagnosis – indeed, any family that’s human.  

- Robert Carr (Poet/Author of “The Unbuttoned Eye”)

In spare and unsparing lines, Eric Hyett charts his wavering voyage through love and grief as he accompanies his mother, the acclaimed poet Barbara Helfgott Hyett, on her descent into the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s disease: “My mother lives/ her life these days// as a poem with no images:/ only sensory input// and gravitational waves/ from far-off galaxies…” Both courageous and vulnerable, he shares the conundrum of being at once a son, a caregiver, and also the vestigial voice of a woman who had been passionate about bringing forth words into the world, both her own, and the words of her beloved students. Tender, tragic, and unforgettable. 

- Robbie Gamble (Poetry Editor, Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices)