As always with the poetry of Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan, the poems in
Love Letters from the Cardiac ICU come straight from the heart; and the impressive poetic voice is direct, totally honest, and pulls in the reader with its range of strong emotions and conversational tones that unfold the personal and naturally on edge narrative of the experience for her and her family. As she writes in the poem 'Waiting Room # 2':
When we saw you, we were horrified that you were hanging on by electrical currents of devices.
And in 'Pulmonary Embolism (PE)':
Two minutes, 120 seconds, you were gone.
Like Lazarus you rose again, once more among the living.
Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan is no stranger to 'the heartbreak at the heart of things' in her life (the loss of her beloved son, aged seventeen), to quote John Hall Wheelock, a quotation first introduced to me by the late Vince Clemente, another Long Island poet and a beloved friend of mine, and she brings all her admirable writing skills to explore the terrifying moments, the hours and the days when one almost loses a loved one forever and their survival is in the hands of others.
Love Letters from the Cardiac ICU is a very moving and arresting record of a wife fearing the loss of her husband and the father of her children. The dark bird of possible grief lingers in so many lines as the poet struggles with periods of fear, anger, and hope. This is a book of poems that deserves to be read by many, including medical professionals who would have a real insight into what the loved one of a patient faces and goes through at such a critical time.
Peter Thabit Jones, Welsh poet and dramatist