The Power of Individual Moments: A Review of Carlene M. Gadapee’s What to Keep by Gretchen Ayoub

What to Keep
By Carlene M. Gadapee
Finishing Line Press, 2025

“How do you know when something you do will be the last time you do it?” This is the opening line in “The Last Time,” the first of twenty-four poems in Carlene Gadapee’s collection, What To Keep. It is a question that kept me reading this collection in one sitting, then going back and reading it all again.

Through a thoughtful and substantive mix of warm visual imagery and heartbreaking scenarios, the question of what stays with us and what we leave behind reminds us of the power of individual moments, past and present, in an overstimulated world.  In “1972,” a poem about her Nana, the author remembers scooping up minnows in a canning jar, soon to be released back into the ocean, the cascade of beach roses by graying posts, abandoned lobster traps, and the joy of a morning spent with a loved one. “Ten” speaks of ripe tomatoes, perfect, as yet uncut. The images are ones that I can step into as I read – a warm house filled with hundreds of books, a backyard bordered by fruit trees and flowers, her dad’s artwork that appeared out of pen, ink, paper and paint.

Through the lens of childhood memories, these snapshots work to counteract the difficult and painful realities of life.  In “Nana Cleans Out Her Desk,” the fascinating clutter of the multitude of treasures in a drawer is offset by the starkness of envelopes stacked in the bottom drawer, the one off limits to childhood exploration.  Nana spreads out envelopes one by one, each empty, as she looks for support money. Just in case. “When I think of loss, it looks like empty envelopes.” What do we keep? The memories of the tiny pearl buttons, dark wheat pennies and other fascinating objects stand in stark contrast to empty envelopes. There is not one without the other.

The indelible mark of family runs throughout this collection, deeply etched in “What I Would Have Kept: My Mother’s Things.”  “It would not have been the old nylons, the worn out bathrobe, the stacks of monogrammed paper…. What I would have kept was a happy memory, a legacy that I could hold against the dark.”  The all-encompassing definition of inheritance is thoughtfully and painfully depicted as she writes about her mother’s illness and the constant shadow of having these symptoms passed on but –  not yet. “Border Children” is a powerful metaphor on what can tear families apart, both internally and externally. Strength through adverse experiences is found in remembered strands of individual moments. “My Father’s Hands “…. once so strong, so talented, now shook - the father who split firewood, brushed a little girl’s hair, wrapped Christmas presents, protected her from her mother’s anger.” How do we reconcile the past with how it shapes us going forward?

The last poem, “Even If This is End Times, I Still”, brings the reader back to those small snippets of moments, the ones we want to not only keep, but cherish – hot black coffee in a pretty mug, fuzzy slippers, clean, crisp sheets. As the world’s frenetic pace and chaos seems to ramp up more with each day, we can fill those spaces between “spiteful words” and “damages done” with the keepsake minutes and seconds that have kept us going through the worst of times.

What We Keep is a keeper – the book I can tuck into a backpack or tote, pulling it out to read a poem or individual stanza that fits the moment – whether it is the anxiety of awaiting uncertain news, a morning spent walking outside, a childhood memory that randomly pops up, a night where I cannot sleep as I contemplate the unanswerable question of why such loss, my silent contemplation as I ask myself if it happened the way I remember it.  “Memories are imperfectly stitched together “and what we choose to keep may be flawed, but the more flawed and ragged, the more beautiful those roses look against the worn gray posts of a beach fence.

Gretchen Ayoub is a success coach at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an editor for MicroLit . She was awarded first place in the Writer's Digest annual competition in the Memoir/Personal Essay category in 2023 and Honorable Mention in the Humor category in 2024. Additionally, Gretchen has published essays for the Boston Book Festival At Home Project, Consequence Magazine (book review), and The Tishman Review. She is currently working on a collection of travel essays focused on healing through grief.