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Recalibrating Gravity: A Memoir In Verse
“Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a bad B-movie, waiting for a new director.”
A memoir in verse, "Recalibrating Gravity" offers a poetic reflection on embracing life’s messiness with humor, grit, and grace—written by Mary Keating, a poet, lawyer, and lifelong disability advocate who became paraplegic at fifteen.
Keating brings readers into life before, during, and after a spinal cord injury. With raw honesty and unexpected wit, she captures what it’s like to find yourself trapped in a world not built for wheelchair users.
This isn’t a polished tale of overcoming—it’s a visceral, funny, and fiercely personal memoir that invites readers to feel each moment: the absurdity, the heartbreak, the faith—and the family that helps her hold it all together.
Her poems don’t tell you about ableism, healthcare failures, or loss—they show you.
"Recalibrating Gravity" is more than a disability memoir. It’s about resilience, identity, and rewriting your own script when the world refuses to hand you a new one.
A memoir in verse, "Recalibrating Gravity" offers a poetic reflection on embracing life’s messiness with humor, grit, and grace—written by Mary Keating, a poet, lawyer, and lifelong disability advocate who became paraplegic at fifteen.
Keating brings readers into life before, during, and after a spinal cord injury. With raw honesty and unexpected wit, she captures what it’s like to find yourself trapped in a world not built for wheelchair users.
This isn’t a polished tale of overcoming—it’s a visceral, funny, and fiercely personal memoir that invites readers to feel each moment: the absurdity, the heartbreak, the faith—and the family that helps her hold it all together.
Her poems don’t tell you about ableism, healthcare failures, or loss—they show you.
"Recalibrating Gravity" is more than a disability memoir. It’s about resilience, identity, and rewriting your own script when the world refuses to hand you a new one.
192 pages, Paperback
Published September 2, 2024
3 people are currently reading
2544 people want to read
About the author
Mary Keating
1 book12 followersMary Keating dreamed of becoming a professional modern dancer, until a car accident in 1973 spun her world around when instantly became a paraplegic at age fifteen. She was shocked by how people treated her differently now as a wheelchair user—speaking to her in a slow, loud voice, or asking her companions what she wanted, or else ignoring her. She also became instantly aware of how inaccessible most of the world was to her now. She found writing a way to synthesize and adjust to her life’s new complexities and challenges.
A few years after her accident, Mary wrote a story about trying to buy her brother a present. After its publication in the Rye Chronicle and a surprise rebuttal from Rye’s Handicapped Society, she invited the mayor to tour Rye’s downtown in a wheelchair with her. A few months later, well before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the town installed curb cuts and accessible parking.
Mary was graduated from Manhattanville College, cum laude, in 1973 with a double major in English and Religion. The power of the written word and her first encounter with politics spurred Mary on to become a lawyer. A graduate of Yale Law School, she’s had her own law practice in Darien, Connecticut for over thirty years. She’s a strong advocate for disability rights and served as President of the State Rehabilitation Council. For six years, she was on her local library’s board.
Mary’s poems appear in several journals and anthologies. including Rattle, Wordgathering, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, and Poetry for Ukraine. Three of her poems, “A Poet’s Heart,” “Ouroboros Frayed” and “Insidious,” have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
With her adventurous spirit, Mary continues to travel a not-so-accessible world, finding the help of friends, family, and strangers when needed. One of her clients helped her become a certified advanced scuba diver. Mary lives with her husband, Dan, in Connecticut and thanks God every day for his steadfast love.
"Recalibrating Gravity," her memoir in verse, is Mary’s first book.
A few years after her accident, Mary wrote a story about trying to buy her brother a present. After its publication in the Rye Chronicle and a surprise rebuttal from Rye’s Handicapped Society, she invited the mayor to tour Rye’s downtown in a wheelchair with her. A few months later, well before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the town installed curb cuts and accessible parking.
Mary was graduated from Manhattanville College, cum laude, in 1973 with a double major in English and Religion. The power of the written word and her first encounter with politics spurred Mary on to become a lawyer. A graduate of Yale Law School, she’s had her own law practice in Darien, Connecticut for over thirty years. She’s a strong advocate for disability rights and served as President of the State Rehabilitation Council. For six years, she was on her local library’s board.
Mary’s poems appear in several journals and anthologies. including Rattle, Wordgathering, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, and Poetry for Ukraine. Three of her poems, “A Poet’s Heart,” “Ouroboros Frayed” and “Insidious,” have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
With her adventurous spirit, Mary continues to travel a not-so-accessible world, finding the help of friends, family, and strangers when needed. One of her clients helped her become a certified advanced scuba diver. Mary lives with her husband, Dan, in Connecticut and thanks God every day for his steadfast love.
"Recalibrating Gravity," her memoir in verse, is Mary’s first book.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
October 26, 2024
BOOK 📚 - RECALIBRATING GRAVITY
AUTHOR - MARY KEATING
RATING - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
🌟 Book Review: The World of Mary Keating 🌟
Dive into the world of Mary Keating, a woman who’s as sharp as she is inspiring. Fifty years ago, at the age of fifteen, a car accident left Mary paraplegic, instantly transforming her once wide-open world 🌎. With a teenager driving her into an oak tree, her life would never be the same. Once part of the “in” crowd, Mary found herself navigating a new reality, now redefined by her disability and the world’s stereotypes of her 🦽.
But don’t expect a story of pity or defeat! Mary rejects labels and fights against society’s shallow view of her new life with wit and humor 💥. She openly cringes at being reduced to just her condition. Instead, she reframes her experiences through a comedic lens, often joking that her life feels like a “bad B movie” 🎬, one where she’s waiting for a better director to take charge. This vivid metaphor shapes her approach to challenges and makes her both relatable and deeply human.
Her poetry, infused with her trademark humor, paints a rich portrait of her inner world. It serves as a powerful reminder that no matter what life throws at us, grace, love, and laughter can save us from despair 💖. Each page of her collection inspires readers to look beyond appearances, to embrace life’s quirks, and to live boldly.
Mary’s story is both heartbreaking and uplifting, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit 🌱. She reminds us that, in the face of life-altering events, there’s always a way to redefine ourselves, create joy, and continue to live fully. The World of Mary Keating is a must-read for anyone looking to be inspired by a raw, honest, and vibrant perspective on life.
AUTHOR - MARY KEATING
RATING - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
🌟 Book Review: The World of Mary Keating 🌟
Dive into the world of Mary Keating, a woman who’s as sharp as she is inspiring. Fifty years ago, at the age of fifteen, a car accident left Mary paraplegic, instantly transforming her once wide-open world 🌎. With a teenager driving her into an oak tree, her life would never be the same. Once part of the “in” crowd, Mary found herself navigating a new reality, now redefined by her disability and the world’s stereotypes of her 🦽.
But don’t expect a story of pity or defeat! Mary rejects labels and fights against society’s shallow view of her new life with wit and humor 💥. She openly cringes at being reduced to just her condition. Instead, she reframes her experiences through a comedic lens, often joking that her life feels like a “bad B movie” 🎬, one where she’s waiting for a better director to take charge. This vivid metaphor shapes her approach to challenges and makes her both relatable and deeply human.
Her poetry, infused with her trademark humor, paints a rich portrait of her inner world. It serves as a powerful reminder that no matter what life throws at us, grace, love, and laughter can save us from despair 💖. Each page of her collection inspires readers to look beyond appearances, to embrace life’s quirks, and to live boldly.
Mary’s story is both heartbreaking and uplifting, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit 🌱. She reminds us that, in the face of life-altering events, there’s always a way to redefine ourselves, create joy, and continue to live fully. The World of Mary Keating is a must-read for anyone looking to be inspired by a raw, honest, and vibrant perspective on life.
September 25, 2025
Recalibrating Gravity is one of those books that stays with you long after you’ve put it down. The author, writing from her experience as a paraplegic, shares poems that are raw, honest, and full of resilience. Some pieces are heartbreaking, others surprisingly uplifting, and all of them feel deeply human. This isn’t just about living with disability—it’s about finding strength, humor, and beauty in unexpected places. If you’re looking for poetry that moves you and opens your eyes, I can’t recommend Recalibrating Gravity enough.
November 2, 2025
Tragic, uplifting, humor, sadness, and perseverance. Love expressed in its many forms. An automobile accident at age 15 forever changed Keating's life but she persisted in spite of it. Thought provoking reading for all readers, not just the disabled. Highly recommend.
I received a complementary copy via Goodreads Giveaways.
I received a complementary copy via Goodreads Giveaways.
September 23, 2025
A wonderful book to keep by your bed. I read one poem daily for inspiration, empowerment and an injection of humor. Often one poem has all three. Fascinating memoir about one’s life. A must read!
September 12, 2025
This wonderful little book showcases Mary’s creativity, writing skills and resilience. I appreciate the variety of the different styles and types of poetry presented; I really enjoy Mary’s prose and sense of humor/wit; and lastly, I have a deep respect for Mary’s resilience. I’ve had the good fortune to know Mary for almost 25 years; she is truly one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met and her book of poetry is an artistic gem and testament to her strength of character. All of these points combined make this a beautiful work.
April 14, 2025
Mary's memoir offered me,above all, life lessons. I will always borrow her "recalibration tool box" and will never minimize the unconditional love our dear yellow lab gives to us. poetry to heal the soul. phyllis and murray
January 27, 2025
Poetry is often considered an art form that lives in the realm of feelings and emotions. Mary Keating takes a different approach in her masterful “Recalibrating Gravity.” More than half of the poems in this collection simply tell a story, with a minimum of fuss and bother. The catch? The stories themselves are so heart-rending or tender or funny that they don’t need to talk about emotion. The emotion is right there, happening to the reader while he or she reads this.
Everybody has stories to tell, but the stories here seem to come from a life that’s been magnified. In bits and pieces, we learn of an alcoholic mother and distant father; a car crash at age 15 that left the author confined to a wheelchair; romance and marriage and sports. She is not only a poet, she is a Yale-trained attorney, avid scuba diver, nature lover, cancer survivor, and loving wife.
About that: Like all marriages, there are ups and downs. Her husband appears to suffer from seasonal depression:
Shadows invade
his lightness of being
when the sun’s too lazy
to climb very far
above the horizon…
… When he reemerges
with the energized sun,
he’ll have missed her
little bits of heaven—
the moments of happiness
she crafted from emptiness
She won’t mention
how her poetry saved
them—each poem
a surrogate sun
(from “Hibernal Solstice,” p. 121)
Far more typical, though, are simple stories related in verse. Some of these address her disability, such as What Makes a Human Human (pp. 89-91), in which a law professor compares a four-legged dog with a three-legged dog, and then asks, “What is the difference between the three-legged dog and the real dog?,” denying the author’s very humanity. There are also numerous examples of playful word formatting on the page, with poems in the shape of a butterfly (In God’s Hands, pp. 62-65) or an ouroboros (An Ouroborous Frayed, p. 106) or even a wheelchair-bound poet (Still, p. 96).
While most of the language is straightforward, occasionally she exhibits interesting internal rhyming and alliteration, such as
We’d pop a plump olive in our mouth
Suck hard until the pimento slipped out
Suck out all the juice – straining
the muscles around our jaws
Flay the olive inside our maws by
scraping the flesh with our incisors
with the precision of a plastic surgeon
Suck again until its skin
rolled paper thin and then,
and only then, chew.
(From Olives, p. 19)
That final “chew” lands like a well-placed arrow.
These pages reward the reader with the wisdom and heart of a writer who has lived far more than most of us, despite her setbacks. Whether celebrating the arrival of spring or the elegiac feel of autumn, loving her dogs, or hating her chemo, Keating is a poet to be reckoned with.
Everybody has stories to tell, but the stories here seem to come from a life that’s been magnified. In bits and pieces, we learn of an alcoholic mother and distant father; a car crash at age 15 that left the author confined to a wheelchair; romance and marriage and sports. She is not only a poet, she is a Yale-trained attorney, avid scuba diver, nature lover, cancer survivor, and loving wife.
About that: Like all marriages, there are ups and downs. Her husband appears to suffer from seasonal depression:
Shadows invade
his lightness of being
when the sun’s too lazy
to climb very far
above the horizon…
… When he reemerges
with the energized sun,
he’ll have missed her
little bits of heaven—
the moments of happiness
she crafted from emptiness
She won’t mention
how her poetry saved
them—each poem
a surrogate sun
(from “Hibernal Solstice,” p. 121)
Far more typical, though, are simple stories related in verse. Some of these address her disability, such as What Makes a Human Human (pp. 89-91), in which a law professor compares a four-legged dog with a three-legged dog, and then asks, “What is the difference between the three-legged dog and the real dog?,” denying the author’s very humanity. There are also numerous examples of playful word formatting on the page, with poems in the shape of a butterfly (In God’s Hands, pp. 62-65) or an ouroboros (An Ouroborous Frayed, p. 106) or even a wheelchair-bound poet (Still, p. 96).
While most of the language is straightforward, occasionally she exhibits interesting internal rhyming and alliteration, such as
We’d pop a plump olive in our mouth
Suck hard until the pimento slipped out
Suck out all the juice – straining
the muscles around our jaws
Flay the olive inside our maws by
scraping the flesh with our incisors
with the precision of a plastic surgeon
Suck again until its skin
rolled paper thin and then,
and only then, chew.
(From Olives, p. 19)
That final “chew” lands like a well-placed arrow.
These pages reward the reader with the wisdom and heart of a writer who has lived far more than most of us, despite her setbacks. Whether celebrating the arrival of spring or the elegiac feel of autumn, loving her dogs, or hating her chemo, Keating is a poet to be reckoned with.
June 24, 2025
I finished this beautiful book in 2 days!! So heartfelt and loving ♥️! I want to leave it somewhere here on my European adventure where others may pick it up but I also want it for myself! What a beautiful memoir. 🍀
February 13, 2025
A wonderful book. The poems tell the story of a life with challenges, but the author’s sense of humor, kindness and perseverance shine through. It’s not a long book, but the story it tells is a page turner, so each page is worth reading at least once for the insight it gives into the author’s life. I suspect I’ll be dipping into it for a long time to come.
August 4, 2025
Mary Keating’s debut memoir in verse is funny, heartfelt, and clever. It’s a collection of poems that tell Keating’s life story in a way that’s both accessible and poignant, and I enjoyed reading it from the first page to the last.
The poems appear in somewhat chronological order, starting with “The Making of a New Year’s Baby,” detailing the process of how Keating started out her life by winning her parents a year’s worth of diaper service. It continues with her childhood adventures in church and with her family, growing up with her siblings, and also chronicles her mother’s struggle with alcoholism. As she moves into the teenage years and her first love, the poems then grow deeper with a major change in her life: the car accident that put her in a wheelchair when she was fifteen.
After that, the poems highlight Keating’s experience with finishing out her teenage years and starting her adult life from a different perspective—sometimes literally. Faith, anger, and hope enter the picture, yet the poems often have a tongue-in-cheek humor to them that balances out the darker emotions exposed in each verse. And there are many more aspects to Keating’s journey, including becoming a lawyer and disability advocate, beating cancer, and falling in love, among other life events.
The poems are often written in free verse, although there are a number of rhymed, formal, or shape poems that provide a pleasing visual addition to the works. In addition, there are many black-and-white illustrations drawn by the author, who ventures into the territory of creating artwork to match her verse. Each of the nine chapters of the book is headed by an illustration and a haiku to match, which is a lovely introduction for the reader to the themes of each section.
*Review originally published in Issue 43 of ScribesMICRO Magazine.*
The poems appear in somewhat chronological order, starting with “The Making of a New Year’s Baby,” detailing the process of how Keating started out her life by winning her parents a year’s worth of diaper service. It continues with her childhood adventures in church and with her family, growing up with her siblings, and also chronicles her mother’s struggle with alcoholism. As she moves into the teenage years and her first love, the poems then grow deeper with a major change in her life: the car accident that put her in a wheelchair when she was fifteen.
After that, the poems highlight Keating’s experience with finishing out her teenage years and starting her adult life from a different perspective—sometimes literally. Faith, anger, and hope enter the picture, yet the poems often have a tongue-in-cheek humor to them that balances out the darker emotions exposed in each verse. And there are many more aspects to Keating’s journey, including becoming a lawyer and disability advocate, beating cancer, and falling in love, among other life events.
The poems are often written in free verse, although there are a number of rhymed, formal, or shape poems that provide a pleasing visual addition to the works. In addition, there are many black-and-white illustrations drawn by the author, who ventures into the territory of creating artwork to match her verse. Each of the nine chapters of the book is headed by an illustration and a haiku to match, which is a lovely introduction for the reader to the themes of each section.
*Review originally published in Issue 43 of ScribesMICRO Magazine.*
September 15, 2024
Recalibrating Gravity is an insightful memoir in verse, told with grace, humor and honesty. It’s completely relatable. I read it in a day and will revisit it often. The wonderful poems and artwork were all created by the author. It explores and teaches without being didactic and helps to open worlds. The title poem brought tears and determination to remember to live life fully. I’d say the entire memoir does just that.
August 3, 2025
What a delightful book! Mary tells her life story with poems that are both poignant and funny. Despite a life-changing car accident, she’s proven to be an extremely productive woman in both her career endeavors (as a lawyer) and in personal adventures. Just the way she describes her series of wheelchairs over the years is a real hoot! Grab yourself a copy and you’ll get a giant kick out of this woman who supposedly is… what? Handicapped—No way!!
October 16, 2024
I enjoyed Mary’s book so much. So honest and transparent describing her life after a childhood accident. So many childhood memories I could relate to just growing up in general. Her disability has not held her back- a very optimistic positive person. Her description of the courtship with her husband made my husband get very teary as I read it to him.
November 9, 2025
Recalibrating Gravity is a poignant collection of beautifully written free verse poetry. Mary's work powerfully illustrates the stages of her life navigating grief, loss, love and what it means to be human with grace and humor. I'm inspired by her strength and admire her talent.
March 11, 2025
Such a beautiful and poetic journey through this brave woman's life. Uplifting and inspiring, she challenges us to step up and step forward into life.
October 8, 2025
At times funny, certainly moving. Very well written.
November 30, 2025
This book changed the way I see my daily life! So enlightening and humorous!
December 1, 2025
A page turner of life lessons and humor!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews