Award winning local poet Maria Williams will celebrate the publication of her new book, “White Doe,” with two readings next week. 

In “White Doe,” Williams cleverly uses exploring a snowy landscape as a metaphor for exploring memory loss. Williams says she was inspired by her own experience navigating the changing relationship with her father after he was diagnosed with dementia. 

Williams describes her father as a brilliant man who worked with some of the first computers, aided in the discovery of acid rain and developed space suits for NASA.  

“What I admired most about him was his child’s mind and his constant awe and curiosity about the world. This made him a good scientist, great dad, and just a fun person to be around,” Williams said in a press release. 

Williams watched as her father’s mind faded, which changed the way the two communicated. 

“As his dementia worsened, he lost his big laugh, and his words came out jumbled. He would often ask ‘Where are we now?’ But one time he asked, ‘Who are we now?’ That question became the driving force of this book,” Williams wrote. “By the end, our conversations were nearly wordless … we would sing together or use our eyes to communicate and we’d grin at each other … and it was clear to me that the man I had known and loved was not gone at all. He was tired, but still enthralled because he knew he was changing, transforming, deepening.”

The book explores how Williams’ father changed due to dementia, and also how she was changed by the experience. 

“I became someone with a new family and an understanding of what memory means to us,” Williams said. 

A Shelburne Falls resident, Williams is used to the snowy winters of New England and felt it to be the perfect setting to tell her story.

“Just like snow covers the ground, dementia covers memory. This leaves us with the possibility of rebirth. It seemed to me that my dad’s dementia was a kind of cocooning that offered metamorphosis,” Williams said.

She added that the presentation of animals throughout the book, particularly the white doe, serves as a metaphor for her own fleeting moments with her father.

“I realized I wanted to recreate that sense of wonder and awe we have when we encounter an animal unexpectedly … when we quiet and stand still just to have a few moments with them.”

Williams said the white doe is an integral character introduced to the speaker and her father in the first poem of the collection, and pops in along with other woodland creatures throughout the book. 

While Williams poses memory loss as an opportunity for growth and metamorphosis, she also examines the negative aspects.

“My uncle, a family psychologist, told me that dementia and Alzheimer’s were the two conditions that fractured families the most. That was very true in our case. My mother, who had long been my father’s caregiver, became abusive toward him … It was horrible because we had been a close family. It broke us for a long time. So, I felt it was important for readers to see that difficulty, maybe even plan for it, and to know they aren’t alone,” Williams said. 

“White Doe” won Verse Daily’s 2023 first book award, and was published by Verse Daily’s partner Dogs Heart Press on Sept. 9.

With the completion and publishing of “White Doe,” Williams is ready to move on to her next project. She said while “White Doe” was dedicated to her father, her next work will focus on her mother. 

“I’m working on a long woven poem about three or four generations of women in my family and the impacts of generational trauma,” Williams said. 

Joining Williams for the readings is Sri Lankan-American poet-diplomat Indran Amirthanayagam.  Amirthanayagam was William’s teacher and mentor at The New School for Social Research in New York City.

Amirthanayagam has multiple books published in various languages. His latest, “The Runner’s Almanac,” is a collection of poems that serve as a love letter to movement, and will also be available for sale at the readings. 

The readings will be held at the Arms Library in Shelburne Falls on Sept. 19 at 6:30 p.m., and at Unnamable Books in Turners Falls on Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

For more informations about Williams and “White Doe,” visit mariawilliamswriter.com.