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Poetic License: A Memoir
At age forty, with two growing children and a new consulting company she’d recently founded, Gretchen Cherington, daughter of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Eberhart, faced a dilemma: Should she protect her parents’ well-crafted family myths while continuing to silence her own voice? Or was it time to challenge those myths and speak her truth—even the unbearable truth that her generous and kind father had sexually violated her?
In this powerful memoir, aided by her father’s extensive archives at Dartmouth College and interviews with some of her father’s best friends, Cherington candidly and courageously retraces her past to make sense of her father and herself. From the women’s movement of the ’60s and the back-to-the-land movement of the ’70s to Cherington’s consulting work through three decades with powerful executives to her eventual decision to speak publicly in the formative months of #MeToo, Poetic License is one woman’s story of speaking truth in a world where, too often, men still call the shots.
In this powerful memoir, aided by her father’s extensive archives at Dartmouth College and interviews with some of her father’s best friends, Cherington candidly and courageously retraces her past to make sense of her father and herself. From the women’s movement of the ’60s and the back-to-the-land movement of the ’70s to Cherington’s consulting work through three decades with powerful executives to her eventual decision to speak publicly in the formative months of #MeToo, Poetic License is one woman’s story of speaking truth in a world where, too often, men still call the shots.
261 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 4, 2020
20 people are currently reading
1442 people want to read
About the author
Gretchen Cherington
3 books38 followersI grew up in a literary family and around many literary icons from Robert Frost to Anne Sexton to James Dickey. Eschewing the writing life, I went into business and over nearly forty years advised hundreds of CEOs and their executive teams on how to turn their companies into places where both business and people could thrive. On the side, I sketched out scenes of what I thought might become a memoir, which they did in 2020 when my first memoir came out -- Poetic License. Arriving on June 6 is my second memoir The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy--A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry. It's about my paternal grandfather who helped George Hormel through twenty years from 1901-1922 build what would become an international brand. It's part memoir, part true-crime, part business history. My third book, in the works, will be fiction but will continue with my themes of complicated family legacy, our reverence for heroes, and the mythology of powerful men.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
July 31, 2020
This was an interesting read. I try not to read much of the descriptions, before I read the book as I prefer to go in cold if I can, or close to it. I enjoyed following Gretchen as she shared what it was like growing up with her poet father as he wrote, slogging along and trying to improve himself as a poet and studying the old poets. She saw how he eventually made some headway in his career, writing poems that were recognized and gaining some visibility.
His career took off, book sales improved. He began winning different awards and attaining more prestigious posts as a result. It was her father with all of his fascinating friends that she wanted to know about and understand more. He was often gone on trips, going to visit his poet and writer friends and have a good time. She thought if she could figure out her father, she would understand herself. This became more important when they began having problems between them, her and her Dad.
It’s a complicated story of a family, and how their early years affected the rest of their lives. Advanced electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, the author Gretchen Cherington, and publisher She Writes Press, for my unbiased review.
His career took off, book sales improved. He began winning different awards and attaining more prestigious posts as a result. It was her father with all of his fascinating friends that she wanted to know about and understand more. He was often gone on trips, going to visit his poet and writer friends and have a good time. She thought if she could figure out her father, she would understand herself. This became more important when they began having problems between them, her and her Dad.
It’s a complicated story of a family, and how their early years affected the rest of their lives. Advanced electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, the author Gretchen Cherington, and publisher She Writes Press, for my unbiased review.
August 5, 2020
TW: sexual assualt
I met Gretchen Cherington several years ago in a writing workshop at The Writer’s Center in White River Junction when she was just beginning work on her memoir. With two other Writer’s Center alums, we formed a writing group called Monday Night Writers. I think the four of us met on a Monday maybe once, but I read several versions of Gretchen’s manuscript prior to it finding a home with She Writes Press. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to receive an Advance Review Copy of Poetic License.
*******
Is a zebra black with white stripes, or white with black stripes?
How do you make sense of the disconnect between the created myth of a legendary man and the lived reality of growing up as his daughter?
How do you reconcile a great man with his personal failings and the grievous harm they cause?
Gretchen Cherington grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire, and coastal Maine, the daughter of one of the most influential men of letters of the mid-twentieth century. Richard Eberhart was poet-in-residence at Dartmouth College for decades, won both a Pulitzer and the National Book Award, and served as New Hampshire poet laureate and as the US poet laureate for Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. He fostered the careers of many literary greats. Think of a famous writer from the 20th century, and Gretchen probably grew up knowing them the way the rest of us know aunts and uncles. “Poetry was the daily music of my childhood,” she writes.
Gretchen’s parents were the driving force of a vibrant literary salon. “Our living room was full of people, always full of people. Visiting writers and literary critics, neighbors who lived on our short street, handpicked college seniors from my father’s popular poetry seminar, Moms’ friends from her downtown pottery class.” At the center of attention, both parents were storytellers, trading the lead as they wove myths from strands of everyday life. What mattered was story, not truth.
Growing up steeped in the music of language, Gretchen writes lyrical prose that disguises a deceptively simple clarity. Her memoir describes a life’s journey through a childhood that is seemingly idyllic until it takes a sharp and unexpected turn in her late teens when her father sexually assaults her. It takes her more than twenty years to return to that trauma and fully address it.
In her early forties, Gretchen experiences “the existential pivot I needed after long years of denial…. I knew how to do isolation and loneliness, and how to hold a deep family secret. I didn’t know what I’d need to put myself ahead of my father, to free myself from his shadow. My father’s fame, his fabulous friends, my beautiful family mattered not – this was his failing, not mine. Saving myself had to be my first order of business.”
Gretchen sets out to unweave the strands of story and truth of her childhood. Driven to understand her complex, larger-than-life father, Gretchen turns to his literary collection at the Rauner Library at Dartmouth. It is a complete, even exhaustive, record of Eberhart’s writings thanks to his habit of keeping not only letters he’d received, but the cc’s of letters he’d sent. At the start of the long process of wading through the thousands upon thousands of letters, Gretchen visits her father. “Dad hadn’t been surprised when I’d told him I was interested in reading through his letters; he assumed everyone would be.”
What is even more striking than Eberhart’s narcissism is Gretchen’s ability to create a fair and evenhanded portrait of him. She deliberately outlines his important role in American letters in the midcentury, and especially his championing of women writers. She touchingly describes his fatherly attention when she was a young girl, and honestly shows his self-involved disregard of her. When Gretchen visits him at the start of her research, she wonders out loud, “Will I find any surprises?” and he responds, “Well, if you do, won’t that be interesting?”
Indeed, Gretchen does uncover some surprises, and she lets his own words describe his infidelities and narcissism. “Is there anything you don’t want me to say?” Gretchen asks her father. “No. Your only job as a writer is to tell the truth.”
But the truth is that there is no simple answer to Gretchen’s question. Scouring her father’s writings for insight into who he was so she could understand why he did what he did, she finds that she is “drowning in an ocean of words.” A friend points out that it might seem clearer if the abuser is horrible — “then you can hate him with all you have. When it’s your dad, whom you loved, whom you trusted as a little kid, and who’s famous and whom you’re still protecting, it’s gotta be hard to hold those two things about him.”
In the end, Gretchen comes to a place of peace, an understanding of herself, her father and mother, and who she is now.
“We all must square the gifts and harms from our original families,” Gretchen writes. “I hoped I’d find in my father’s letters bits of family history I hadn’t known, strands of evidence that might support a coherent story of him.”
In the end, we realize that there is no one answer. Five thousand letters, millions of words, can’t describe the truth of one man. The zebra is both black stripes and white, just as we are the harms and gifts bestowed by our early lives and influences.
I met Gretchen Cherington several years ago in a writing workshop at The Writer’s Center in White River Junction when she was just beginning work on her memoir. With two other Writer’s Center alums, we formed a writing group called Monday Night Writers. I think the four of us met on a Monday maybe once, but I read several versions of Gretchen’s manuscript prior to it finding a home with She Writes Press. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to receive an Advance Review Copy of Poetic License.
*******
Is a zebra black with white stripes, or white with black stripes?
How do you make sense of the disconnect between the created myth of a legendary man and the lived reality of growing up as his daughter?
How do you reconcile a great man with his personal failings and the grievous harm they cause?
Gretchen Cherington grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire, and coastal Maine, the daughter of one of the most influential men of letters of the mid-twentieth century. Richard Eberhart was poet-in-residence at Dartmouth College for decades, won both a Pulitzer and the National Book Award, and served as New Hampshire poet laureate and as the US poet laureate for Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. He fostered the careers of many literary greats. Think of a famous writer from the 20th century, and Gretchen probably grew up knowing them the way the rest of us know aunts and uncles. “Poetry was the daily music of my childhood,” she writes.
Gretchen’s parents were the driving force of a vibrant literary salon. “Our living room was full of people, always full of people. Visiting writers and literary critics, neighbors who lived on our short street, handpicked college seniors from my father’s popular poetry seminar, Moms’ friends from her downtown pottery class.” At the center of attention, both parents were storytellers, trading the lead as they wove myths from strands of everyday life. What mattered was story, not truth.
Growing up steeped in the music of language, Gretchen writes lyrical prose that disguises a deceptively simple clarity. Her memoir describes a life’s journey through a childhood that is seemingly idyllic until it takes a sharp and unexpected turn in her late teens when her father sexually assaults her. It takes her more than twenty years to return to that trauma and fully address it.
In her early forties, Gretchen experiences “the existential pivot I needed after long years of denial…. I knew how to do isolation and loneliness, and how to hold a deep family secret. I didn’t know what I’d need to put myself ahead of my father, to free myself from his shadow. My father’s fame, his fabulous friends, my beautiful family mattered not – this was his failing, not mine. Saving myself had to be my first order of business.”
Gretchen sets out to unweave the strands of story and truth of her childhood. Driven to understand her complex, larger-than-life father, Gretchen turns to his literary collection at the Rauner Library at Dartmouth. It is a complete, even exhaustive, record of Eberhart’s writings thanks to his habit of keeping not only letters he’d received, but the cc’s of letters he’d sent. At the start of the long process of wading through the thousands upon thousands of letters, Gretchen visits her father. “Dad hadn’t been surprised when I’d told him I was interested in reading through his letters; he assumed everyone would be.”
What is even more striking than Eberhart’s narcissism is Gretchen’s ability to create a fair and evenhanded portrait of him. She deliberately outlines his important role in American letters in the midcentury, and especially his championing of women writers. She touchingly describes his fatherly attention when she was a young girl, and honestly shows his self-involved disregard of her. When Gretchen visits him at the start of her research, she wonders out loud, “Will I find any surprises?” and he responds, “Well, if you do, won’t that be interesting?”
Indeed, Gretchen does uncover some surprises, and she lets his own words describe his infidelities and narcissism. “Is there anything you don’t want me to say?” Gretchen asks her father. “No. Your only job as a writer is to tell the truth.”
But the truth is that there is no simple answer to Gretchen’s question. Scouring her father’s writings for insight into who he was so she could understand why he did what he did, she finds that she is “drowning in an ocean of words.” A friend points out that it might seem clearer if the abuser is horrible — “then you can hate him with all you have. When it’s your dad, whom you loved, whom you trusted as a little kid, and who’s famous and whom you’re still protecting, it’s gotta be hard to hold those two things about him.”
In the end, Gretchen comes to a place of peace, an understanding of herself, her father and mother, and who she is now.
“We all must square the gifts and harms from our original families,” Gretchen writes. “I hoped I’d find in my father’s letters bits of family history I hadn’t known, strands of evidence that might support a coherent story of him.”
In the end, we realize that there is no one answer. Five thousand letters, millions of words, can’t describe the truth of one man. The zebra is both black stripes and white, just as we are the harms and gifts bestowed by our early lives and influences.
July 22, 2020
A memoir of a woman in her 40s who tries to piece together who famous father's public life with the man she knew privately. A woman trying to unbury her feelings for her father, his betrayal, neglect and sexual abuse against the man that everyone else knew. Does she continue to bury these memories for fear of damaging his public persona or expose them so that she can work through them and move forward with her life.
Like memory, this is not written in any kind of chronological order. Her memories shared are from every time in her life so it's not a smoothly flowing story.
Thanks to She Writes Press for sending!
Like memory, this is not written in any kind of chronological order. Her memories shared are from every time in her life so it's not a smoothly flowing story.
Thanks to She Writes Press for sending!
January 10, 2023
I was ill-prepared for this book. I read the description and thought it sounded intriguing. I am a feminist after all, but I really wasn't prepared for Cherington's writing. Beautiful, honest, and deeply thought-provoking.
I'm more of a straightforward reader and writer. I follow the sequence of events as they happen. I move from a to b to c all the way through z, but that wasn't Cherington's approach. She moved through different dates, going to the past, the present, in between, and back again. It's a bit chaotic if I'm being honest, but it all works. The way she laid her book out works so well in telling her story. I felt as if I was right there with her, experiencing her life.
Cherington is also a stunning writer. I loved her metaphors, her tone of voice, and the way she could clearly describe in vivid detail an entire scene with just a few sentences. There was one line in particular that stuck out to me. I actually stopped reading and fumbled for my phone so I could make sure I got the line and page number down. Cherington said, "My father had the words to describe Mom's disease and never wrote a single poem about it." I didn't understand why that specific line stuck out to me so much. I mulled it over for a long time before realizing that that single sentence there essentially sums up Cherington's father. Here was this person who had words at the ready, so much so that they seemed to be brimming and spilling out over the top, yet he elected not to use those words to describe his wife's disease that largely affected his entire family. And that had me wondering, did he ever use those words to write poems describing his feelings about his mother's death? Did he ever use them to talk about his betrayal to his daughter? And if not, as I suspect he didn't, why? Was he repressing those moments in his life? Did he simply not realize how impactful those moments were? Cherington said that she spent years scouring her father's archives for answers to such questions and I see why. In a single line, she captured the complexity of her father's entire character. Incredible.
Unlike her father, Cherington chose to use her writing as a sort of outlet and as a way to heal. Reading about her life, reading about her experiences, and seeing how she persevered was inspiring. It always amazes me how much people can endure. How strong they can be. And Cherington is one strong individual. I commend her for sharing her story with the world and for being brave enough to share the truth. I hope she continues to write in the future, because I am eager to read more.
I'm more of a straightforward reader and writer. I follow the sequence of events as they happen. I move from a to b to c all the way through z, but that wasn't Cherington's approach. She moved through different dates, going to the past, the present, in between, and back again. It's a bit chaotic if I'm being honest, but it all works. The way she laid her book out works so well in telling her story. I felt as if I was right there with her, experiencing her life.
Cherington is also a stunning writer. I loved her metaphors, her tone of voice, and the way she could clearly describe in vivid detail an entire scene with just a few sentences. There was one line in particular that stuck out to me. I actually stopped reading and fumbled for my phone so I could make sure I got the line and page number down. Cherington said, "My father had the words to describe Mom's disease and never wrote a single poem about it." I didn't understand why that specific line stuck out to me so much. I mulled it over for a long time before realizing that that single sentence there essentially sums up Cherington's father. Here was this person who had words at the ready, so much so that they seemed to be brimming and spilling out over the top, yet he elected not to use those words to describe his wife's disease that largely affected his entire family. And that had me wondering, did he ever use those words to write poems describing his feelings about his mother's death? Did he ever use them to talk about his betrayal to his daughter? And if not, as I suspect he didn't, why? Was he repressing those moments in his life? Did he simply not realize how impactful those moments were? Cherington said that she spent years scouring her father's archives for answers to such questions and I see why. In a single line, she captured the complexity of her father's entire character. Incredible.
Unlike her father, Cherington chose to use her writing as a sort of outlet and as a way to heal. Reading about her life, reading about her experiences, and seeing how she persevered was inspiring. It always amazes me how much people can endure. How strong they can be. And Cherington is one strong individual. I commend her for sharing her story with the world and for being brave enough to share the truth. I hope she continues to write in the future, because I am eager to read more.
June 19, 2020
Poetic License by Gretchen Cherington is a powerful and surprisingly positive biography/memoir. I don't know that I will be able to do the book justice in explaining my feelings but I will do my best.
While who Cherington's father is plays a large part in why many readers will want to read this, understand that this is her story, not his. His life plays an even larger role in the story of her life than many other father's would, it isn't as a telling of his life that it is covered but rather to give us some idea of how Cherington came to understand his actions. But Richard Eberhart is a supporting character, not the main one. Keep that in the front of your mind here.
I think the tendency in some if not most books dealing with familial abuse is to paint the abuser in the worst light possible. Here it is more a case of using as much light as possible to illuminate the entire person (as compared to either just the abuser or just the adored public figure) and letting the reader decide if that presents an entirely negative image or a more nuanced picture of a terribly flawed person. I don't know if I would have been as even-handed in my presentation if I had been in her shoes.
Some who mainly read this because of the celebrated may lose interest when Cherington moves on with her life. That is a shame because the fact is Eberhart never leaves the story just as formative events never leave any person's life. The strength and real message of the book comes in the part of the book such a reader seems to gloss. How does one make sense of what is hard to understand? How does one not become bitter or completely distrusting of all men? And how does one reconcile the bad with the good within the very person such accounting should never have to be done? It is how Cherington lives her life and comes to understand what happened, as well as understand the perpetrator, where this book offers both ideas and support for those who may be grappling with similar internal battles.
The writing itself is wonderful. While we never completely lose sight of those childhood events that created internal doubt and conflict she also lets us see that her life is a lot more than just a response to those events. Humor, happiness, sadness, and of course conflict are all part of Cherington's life, often amplified because of the past, but always hers to own and turn to whatever end she believes best. And she is a very accomplished woman.
I highly recommend this for readers of biographies in general as well as those who might want a voice to help them know they are not alone. This is certainly no self-help book but it does, by showing how Cherington helped herself, shows that there are avenues for self-help even if they are different for each person.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
While who Cherington's father is plays a large part in why many readers will want to read this, understand that this is her story, not his. His life plays an even larger role in the story of her life than many other father's would, it isn't as a telling of his life that it is covered but rather to give us some idea of how Cherington came to understand his actions. But Richard Eberhart is a supporting character, not the main one. Keep that in the front of your mind here.
I think the tendency in some if not most books dealing with familial abuse is to paint the abuser in the worst light possible. Here it is more a case of using as much light as possible to illuminate the entire person (as compared to either just the abuser or just the adored public figure) and letting the reader decide if that presents an entirely negative image or a more nuanced picture of a terribly flawed person. I don't know if I would have been as even-handed in my presentation if I had been in her shoes.
Some who mainly read this because of the celebrated may lose interest when Cherington moves on with her life. That is a shame because the fact is Eberhart never leaves the story just as formative events never leave any person's life. The strength and real message of the book comes in the part of the book such a reader seems to gloss. How does one make sense of what is hard to understand? How does one not become bitter or completely distrusting of all men? And how does one reconcile the bad with the good within the very person such accounting should never have to be done? It is how Cherington lives her life and comes to understand what happened, as well as understand the perpetrator, where this book offers both ideas and support for those who may be grappling with similar internal battles.
The writing itself is wonderful. While we never completely lose sight of those childhood events that created internal doubt and conflict she also lets us see that her life is a lot more than just a response to those events. Humor, happiness, sadness, and of course conflict are all part of Cherington's life, often amplified because of the past, but always hers to own and turn to whatever end she believes best. And she is a very accomplished woman.
I highly recommend this for readers of biographies in general as well as those who might want a voice to help them know they are not alone. This is certainly no self-help book but it does, by showing how Cherington helped herself, shows that there are avenues for self-help even if they are different for each person.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
April 18, 2021
I may be a rare reader for not knowing the work of Richard Eberhart. I read this because I was interested in the experience of the author, and not because of a curiosity about her father. It was a powerful experience to learn about him through her eyes, and it was intriguing to learn about the personal lives of some of the poets I did know (Ginsburg, Lowell) and to get a glimpse into a life of privilege that is far from my own experience, but the real power in this story is in witnessing the transformation of the author as she heals from neglect, role-reversals, and abuse. Despite her unique circumstances, her journey is one that too many of us must take, and I think this book will serve as good company to anyone who is feeling alone in their own struggle to heal and thrive.
June 7, 2020
This book is part autobiography, part biography of poet Richard Eberhart, and a look at what happens when a daughter is molested by a famous father and doesn't talk about it for years. Richard Eberhart was the father, a celebrated award-winning poet and wildly popular professor at Dartmouth College. He and his wife Helen had unlimited friends and parties. It was on one of those party nights, when author Gretchen Cherington was 17, that her drunk father entered her bedroom and molested her. Ms. Cherington did not tell her mother, and would only finally deal with the matter as an adult.
The book is extremely well written, and I was captivated by the author's description of her childhood and family life. When she left for college, however, my interest level started descending, as it so often does in memoirs. I don't know if it's me or what, but when a memoirist leaves childhood behind, it's not unusual for my captivation to be left back with it. I soon grew tired of reading more and more about Ms. Cherington's father and family. When she tells how she informed others about her molestation, though, that was certainly interesting.
Many of her father's friends said it was his narcissism that made him molest her. One friend said he and his wife always thought Richard Eberhart saw his daughter more as an "object" than as a person. The overall feeling seemed to be that he was certainly wrong in what he did, but he had still been a great poet and a great friend. The author's molestation was obviously just going to be a blip in her father's life story, even though it caused all sorts of problems in her life story. That's apparently how it goes when you have a famous, award-winning, fabulous party-giving father.
(Note: I received a free e-ARC of this book from NetGalley and the author or publisher.)
The book is extremely well written, and I was captivated by the author's description of her childhood and family life. When she left for college, however, my interest level started descending, as it so often does in memoirs. I don't know if it's me or what, but when a memoirist leaves childhood behind, it's not unusual for my captivation to be left back with it. I soon grew tired of reading more and more about Ms. Cherington's father and family. When she tells how she informed others about her molestation, though, that was certainly interesting.
Many of her father's friends said it was his narcissism that made him molest her. One friend said he and his wife always thought Richard Eberhart saw his daughter more as an "object" than as a person. The overall feeling seemed to be that he was certainly wrong in what he did, but he had still been a great poet and a great friend. The author's molestation was obviously just going to be a blip in her father's life story, even though it caused all sorts of problems in her life story. That's apparently how it goes when you have a famous, award-winning, fabulous party-giving father.
(Note: I received a free e-ARC of this book from NetGalley and the author or publisher.)
June 1, 2020
Gretchen Cherington’s memoir held me spellbound from start to finish. What endeared me most to her book, Poetic License, was her honest and frank discussion of what could have remained a deeply buried secret—sexual molestation by her Pulitzer prize winning father, Richard Eberhart. Rather than hiding in the shadows, Ms. Cherington chose the courageous path of writing her story, and she did so beautifully. “Silence is isolation,” she wrote, “as bad as the abuse itself.”
A road map for survivors of the “Me Too” movement, Ms. Cherinton describes her journey to find her own voice and speak truth to power. Her courage and determination are a testament to her strength and signal hope to survivors that healing and forgiveness are possible in overcoming wounds from sexual abuse.
Ms. Cherington’s writing is exquisite, rich in sumptuous details, and deeply engaging. A master of scene development, she intimately portrays her world of innermost thoughts and feelings. Her descriptions of childhood are riveting. I really enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to end. I highly recommend and congratulate Ms. Cherington on the success of her debut memoir.
A road map for survivors of the “Me Too” movement, Ms. Cherinton describes her journey to find her own voice and speak truth to power. Her courage and determination are a testament to her strength and signal hope to survivors that healing and forgiveness are possible in overcoming wounds from sexual abuse.
Ms. Cherington’s writing is exquisite, rich in sumptuous details, and deeply engaging. A master of scene development, she intimately portrays her world of innermost thoughts and feelings. Her descriptions of childhood are riveting. I really enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to end. I highly recommend and congratulate Ms. Cherington on the success of her debut memoir.
August 16, 2021
What a brave, compelling and beautifully-written memoir which chronicles how the author confronts abuse and betrayal in her family and ultimately takes back her whole and authentic self. This is Gretchen Cherington’s “speaking truth to power”—and how powerful it is! The “power” in this case is her father, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Eberhart, and the public image he has cultivated. Eberhart, who is lionized by the literary community and beloved by his friends and colleagues, has also molested his young daughter.
During my career working with survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, I heard many stories of children who had to confront the unspeakable acts perpetrated on them by the people who were supposed to love and protect them. It’s always gut-wrenching to confront this awful truth. Think how much more shattering this is when the perpetrator is a celebrity and/ or highly-esteemed community member. Brava, Gretchen Cherington! You have made it just a little easier for other survivors to uncover their own truths and reclaim their lives. Thank you for writing this.
During my career working with survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, I heard many stories of children who had to confront the unspeakable acts perpetrated on them by the people who were supposed to love and protect them. It’s always gut-wrenching to confront this awful truth. Think how much more shattering this is when the perpetrator is a celebrity and/ or highly-esteemed community member. Brava, Gretchen Cherington! You have made it just a little easier for other survivors to uncover their own truths and reclaim their lives. Thank you for writing this.
September 25, 2021
A beautifully paced, sensory memoir about one woman’s slow, courageous journey to get out from under the shadow of her famous, but flawed father, the poet, Richard Eberhart. Gretchen Cherington’s gorgeous prose grabbed me on page one and never let me go. Each night, I couldn’t wait to dive back into this rich engrossing story. I loved being immersed in Cherington’s world and was deeply inspired by her steady determination and fortitude. Cherington speaks to every daughter who has been ever eclipsed by a famous father, every woman who has stayed silent to protect a powerful man. I never stopped rooting for her as she slowly found her way toward a mature and breathtaking freedom. I loved this story.”
October 6, 2020
-Poetic Justice-
I adored reading Poetic License for the author’s roll up her sleeves and go after it approach to the fraught subject of parental abuse. Whenever I finish reading a memoir, I like to feel that I’ve gotten to know the author. I want to be able to answer the questions: Who are they? and How did they get that way?
Gretchen Cherington delivers her personal history and memories with the modesty of a country farmer, a persona she enjoyed as a young woman. As she describes her enviable childhood, filled with play, privilege, and her famous father’s prestige, it’s as though she’s tilling the soil from which readers can watch her grow. All seems well, a life filled with love and laughter, but as she’s maturing, there are concerns. Like pestilence and disease threatening to ruin a crop, there are harmful pressures looming: a menacing neighbor that’s allowed to carry on unchecked, her mother’s worsening epilepsy, and a number of leering overtures and unwanted, slobbery kisses from her father. Furthermore, her childhood home seems to have been animated by a nearly constant parade of overshadowing literati. The inclination to eat, drink, and be merry was pervasive. When it came to unpleasantness however, the family practice was to endure with stolid silence. Added to the planting mix of Cherington’s adolescence were her mother’s banal words of instruction—to be happy, helpful, and brave.
Poetic license as a concept involves taking liberties, departing from norms and conventions, and subverting expectations for an intended lyrical effect. As a literary device, it would have been Cherington’s U.S. Poet Laureate/Pulitzer-Prize winning father’s stock and trade, but when that boundary busting habit of mind is used to violate the sovereignty of his daughter’s 17-year-old body, all poetry is wrecked. From that moment forward, for his daughter at least, the much-lauded linguistic communicator is reduced to little more than a narcissistic male leading with his libido. His indefensible actions, like a flood, locust infestation, or barn fire, are understandably devastating to young Gretchen.
Following her father’s odious sexual transgressions, the memoir continues with 150 pages of her regrowth, and self-determination is her tap root. Not to belabor this farming metaphor any further, what I appreciated most about Poetic License was that the assault took place in the middle of the story; not at the beginning, and not at the end. The author gives ample time to describing her path to recovery, a journey that necessarily includes breaking silence. I found her account to be sincere, heroic, and engaging. That the author finds healing through the written word is pure poetic justice.
I put down this memoir satisfied that I had been told what happened and how it affected the author.
I adored reading Poetic License for the author’s roll up her sleeves and go after it approach to the fraught subject of parental abuse. Whenever I finish reading a memoir, I like to feel that I’ve gotten to know the author. I want to be able to answer the questions: Who are they? and How did they get that way?
Gretchen Cherington delivers her personal history and memories with the modesty of a country farmer, a persona she enjoyed as a young woman. As she describes her enviable childhood, filled with play, privilege, and her famous father’s prestige, it’s as though she’s tilling the soil from which readers can watch her grow. All seems well, a life filled with love and laughter, but as she’s maturing, there are concerns. Like pestilence and disease threatening to ruin a crop, there are harmful pressures looming: a menacing neighbor that’s allowed to carry on unchecked, her mother’s worsening epilepsy, and a number of leering overtures and unwanted, slobbery kisses from her father. Furthermore, her childhood home seems to have been animated by a nearly constant parade of overshadowing literati. The inclination to eat, drink, and be merry was pervasive. When it came to unpleasantness however, the family practice was to endure with stolid silence. Added to the planting mix of Cherington’s adolescence were her mother’s banal words of instruction—to be happy, helpful, and brave.
Poetic license as a concept involves taking liberties, departing from norms and conventions, and subverting expectations for an intended lyrical effect. As a literary device, it would have been Cherington’s U.S. Poet Laureate/Pulitzer-Prize winning father’s stock and trade, but when that boundary busting habit of mind is used to violate the sovereignty of his daughter’s 17-year-old body, all poetry is wrecked. From that moment forward, for his daughter at least, the much-lauded linguistic communicator is reduced to little more than a narcissistic male leading with his libido. His indefensible actions, like a flood, locust infestation, or barn fire, are understandably devastating to young Gretchen.
Following her father’s odious sexual transgressions, the memoir continues with 150 pages of her regrowth, and self-determination is her tap root. Not to belabor this farming metaphor any further, what I appreciated most about Poetic License was that the assault took place in the middle of the story; not at the beginning, and not at the end. The author gives ample time to describing her path to recovery, a journey that necessarily includes breaking silence. I found her account to be sincere, heroic, and engaging. That the author finds healing through the written word is pure poetic justice.
I put down this memoir satisfied that I had been told what happened and how it affected the author.
August 6, 2020
Anyone who’s grown up in the shadow of a powerful parent knows how difficult carving out a discrete identity can be. This is doubly so when the figure who’s supposed to be your staunchest protector inflicts your worst pain. Poetic License is the story of just such a struggle, as a devoted daughter must shed the bonds of youthful adoration and confront the truth about her family’s collective mythology. As a child Cherington literally sat at the knee of her famous father, Richard Eberhart—Pulitzer Prize winner, U.S. Poet Laureate, Ivy League faculty, and friend to a heady circle of literati. At one time or another, most of the luminaries of modern American poetry--Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov, Robert Penn Warren, Katherine Anne Porter, Wallace Stevens, Anne Sexton—were guests in the Bernhart home. Lit by such brilliant stars and nurtured by a witty, creative mother, Cherington’s childhood seemed amply blessed. Her summers at the family cottage on the rocky Maine coast meant boat rides, moonlit swims, clambakes on the beach, and writers in Adirondack chairs overlooking the cove and, glasses in hand, discussing their art. During the school year the family returned to a seemingly idyllic life in a quintessential New England college town with its village green and ivy-covered buildings. And all of this was colored by the patina emanating from her father and a constantly changing cast of renowned literary figures.
But all families have histories, and some histories hold painful secrets. At an early age Cherington learned hard lessons about fragility and the weight of responsibility as her mother struggled with increasingly serious epileptic seizures. But it was an evening when Cherington was just sixteen that would change the trajectory of her life and send her hurtling toward decades of doubt about herself, her family, and the stories they told themselves and others about their shared existence. Burying her trauma, Cherington eventually molded herself into the expert consultant, advising Power Players in giant international corporations how to find and tap into the best in themselves and their employees. How Cherington found the best in herself by working her way from loss to self-affirmation, from doubt to empowerment, is a compelling, entertaining tale. As she emerges from the shadow of the Great Man, she comes to see him as at once both precious and flawed, and in the process she discovers her own authentic voice as a person and a writer. Poetic License chronicles that journey with humor, honesty, and humility.
But all families have histories, and some histories hold painful secrets. At an early age Cherington learned hard lessons about fragility and the weight of responsibility as her mother struggled with increasingly serious epileptic seizures. But it was an evening when Cherington was just sixteen that would change the trajectory of her life and send her hurtling toward decades of doubt about herself, her family, and the stories they told themselves and others about their shared existence. Burying her trauma, Cherington eventually molded herself into the expert consultant, advising Power Players in giant international corporations how to find and tap into the best in themselves and their employees. How Cherington found the best in herself by working her way from loss to self-affirmation, from doubt to empowerment, is a compelling, entertaining tale. As she emerges from the shadow of the Great Man, she comes to see him as at once both precious and flawed, and in the process she discovers her own authentic voice as a person and a writer. Poetic License chronicles that journey with humor, honesty, and humility.
March 17, 2023
Mit vierzig stand Gretchen Cherington vor der schweren Entscheidung, wie sie mit dem Nachlass ihres Vaters Richard Eberhart umgehen soll. Nicht nur mit der umfangreichen Korrespondenz, sondern auch mit der Tatsache, dass er sie sexuell missbraucht hat. Wem wird man glauben: dem Pulitzer-Preisträger oder seiner Tochter?
Das Cover zeigt ein kleines Mädchen, das bewundernd zu seinem Vater aufsieht. Die Erinnerungen Gretchens an diese Zeit klingen anders. Sie erzählen von einem Mann, der sich und seine Arbeit an erste Stelle gestellt hat und der die epileptischen Anfälle seiner Frau als eine lästige Unterbrechung empfunden hat. Sie erzählt auch von einer Mutter, die wahrscheinlich gespürt hat, dass etwas nicht stimmt, aber mit der Situation überfordert war. Was ihr älterer Bruder wusste, wurde mir bei der Lektüre nicht klar. Allerdings hat er durch ihre Beschreibung einen unsympathischen Eindruck bei mir hinterlassen.
Nach der langen Zeit war es sicherlich nicht einfach, über diese Erlebnisse zu sprechen. Auch deshalb, weil ich den Eindruck gewonnen habe, dass auch das Umfeld von Richard Eberhart ihm jeden Fehltritt verziehen hat, so wie auf sein oft unmögliches Benehmen reagiert oder besser: nicht reagiert wurde.
Trotz allem wirkt Gretchen Cherington in ihrem Buch wie eine Frau, die weder Groll hegt noch durch die Erlebnisse in der Vergangenheit gebrochen ist. Dass der Weg dorthin nicht leicht war, kann man in ihren Erinnerungen sehen.
Das Cover zeigt ein kleines Mädchen, das bewundernd zu seinem Vater aufsieht. Die Erinnerungen Gretchens an diese Zeit klingen anders. Sie erzählen von einem Mann, der sich und seine Arbeit an erste Stelle gestellt hat und der die epileptischen Anfälle seiner Frau als eine lästige Unterbrechung empfunden hat. Sie erzählt auch von einer Mutter, die wahrscheinlich gespürt hat, dass etwas nicht stimmt, aber mit der Situation überfordert war. Was ihr älterer Bruder wusste, wurde mir bei der Lektüre nicht klar. Allerdings hat er durch ihre Beschreibung einen unsympathischen Eindruck bei mir hinterlassen.
Nach der langen Zeit war es sicherlich nicht einfach, über diese Erlebnisse zu sprechen. Auch deshalb, weil ich den Eindruck gewonnen habe, dass auch das Umfeld von Richard Eberhart ihm jeden Fehltritt verziehen hat, so wie auf sein oft unmögliches Benehmen reagiert oder besser: nicht reagiert wurde.
Trotz allem wirkt Gretchen Cherington in ihrem Buch wie eine Frau, die weder Groll hegt noch durch die Erlebnisse in der Vergangenheit gebrochen ist. Dass der Weg dorthin nicht leicht war, kann man in ihren Erinnerungen sehen.
July 27, 2020
PoeticLicense--Gretchen Cherington:
This memoir required courage and determination to write about facing both father-worship and father-fear. Cherington’s unflinching account of a beloved father's betrayal in the most personal and traumatic way reveals a trusting seventeen-year-old on the cusp of womanhood whose world is brought to a devastating crash one night. The writing is exquisite and deeply moving in understanding a father she adored but didn't really know, whose narcissism was twisted together with his brilliance as an eminent academic. Retelling moments of upheaval and how her harrowing youth changed the author, Cherington reveals her vulnerability and vows to shift the trajectory of her life. "Poetic License" is also an account of how the author molds her future and that of her children, transcending an earlier life of pain and dark family secrets. A powerful memoir to read.
This memoir required courage and determination to write about facing both father-worship and father-fear. Cherington’s unflinching account of a beloved father's betrayal in the most personal and traumatic way reveals a trusting seventeen-year-old on the cusp of womanhood whose world is brought to a devastating crash one night. The writing is exquisite and deeply moving in understanding a father she adored but didn't really know, whose narcissism was twisted together with his brilliance as an eminent academic. Retelling moments of upheaval and how her harrowing youth changed the author, Cherington reveals her vulnerability and vows to shift the trajectory of her life. "Poetic License" is also an account of how the author molds her future and that of her children, transcending an earlier life of pain and dark family secrets. A powerful memoir to read.
August 13, 2020
Gretchen, as a little child, watches her father struggle with his career. As his career developed and he began winning awards and selling more books, he became more absent. More trips, lectures and less time at home as she was growing up, made a profound impact on her life. Then…several events compounded her relationship with her father.
I enjoy memoirs and this one is a favorite. I will be honest. I had never heard of Richard Eberhart (GASP!). Well, I might have studied him in college…but I swear I don’t remember. So, this story had me researching and studying his poems. I love learning new things and this one had me on the hunt, even if Eberhart is an unlikable human being. You must read this story to find out why!
Need a unique memoir…this one is it! It is powerful and very well written. It will have you struggling to
Grab it today!
I received a copy from the publisher for a honest review.
I enjoy memoirs and this one is a favorite. I will be honest. I had never heard of Richard Eberhart (GASP!). Well, I might have studied him in college…but I swear I don’t remember. So, this story had me researching and studying his poems. I love learning new things and this one had me on the hunt, even if Eberhart is an unlikable human being. You must read this story to find out why!
Need a unique memoir…this one is it! It is powerful and very well written. It will have you struggling to
Grab it today!
I received a copy from the publisher for a honest review.
August 23, 2020
If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to grow up in the shadow of a famous American poet, read Gretchen Cherington’s memoir, Poetic License. Her father, Pulitzer Prize-winning, Poet Laureate Richard Eberhart was charming and charismatic, and their home frequently the center of gatherings with such greats as Allen Ginsburg, Anne Sexton, and even Robert Frost. But despite her privileged life, the author weaves a powerful story of what truly happened in his shadow, revealing the heartbreak of betrayal and assault that silenced her for far too long. Her memoir is her declaration that she is no longer willing to be silent. Beautifully written, with lines such as, “I’ve long loved the smell of pitch hardening on the trunk of an evergreen, pausing its growth as it gathers itself for winter,” Poetic License is a fascinating read. Her father, who believed in conveying truth, would be proud.
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January 16, 2023
One of the reasons I like to go into a book blindly is that I don't have any preconceived notions about what I am about to read. Gretchen is the daughter of Richard Eberhart, an internationally known and aware winning poet. Growing up their family moved around a lot as Richard took on various academic jobs but no matter where they went, the Eberhart house was known for their parties. It was during one of these all night parties that Gretchen was molested by her father at the age of 17. She didn't tell a soul.
Gretchen's story is compelling and interesting. The book has a lot of history about Richard Eberhart, the history of the time and the social scene. It is as much about Gretchen's journey to piece together who Richard Eberthart was to the world and her version of him as a father, as it is about her life.
Thank you to the author, Blue Cottage Agency and Book and Pens on Green Gable for providing me with a copy to read and review.
Gretchen's story is compelling and interesting. The book has a lot of history about Richard Eberhart, the history of the time and the social scene. It is as much about Gretchen's journey to piece together who Richard Eberthart was to the world and her version of him as a father, as it is about her life.
Thank you to the author, Blue Cottage Agency and Book and Pens on Green Gable for providing me with a copy to read and review.
November 4, 2020
I set a retirement goal of reading at least memoir a month. I interested in learning about other people's experiences and lifestyles. Gretchen's well-crafted and reflective chronicle is testament that you never know what others may be dealing with. She offers thoughtful and hard earned perspective on how her family dynamics and father's actions impacted her and how she made her peace with that history. Many the current memoirs are about people who lived through some kind of self-destructive phase. But, Gretchen's story is not about going off the rails. She is highly competent - a loving wife and mother and a wise leader. Her trauma informed her choices and her choices gave her the strength and tools to confront her trauma. Her story is complex and nuanced, just like real life.
January 4, 2021
Growing up in the 50’s/60’s with her poet father who is none to pleasant, it has to be said. I found this autobiography far too self engrossed with what was basically a one off occurrence. Yes it was traumatic for the author but pretty minor compared to what has happened and still does to other people on a daily basis. As she felt so strongly and allowed it to affect the rest of her life, I wondered why she never confronted the transgressor. Some parts of the book were interesting, the social history and there were a few funny parts but on the whole it was a bit pedestrian. I realise I’m in the minority here! I was given this ARC by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
February 3, 2021
I have to confess that I'd never heard of Richard Eberhart before I read Gretchen Cherington's unusual memoir, though I was quite familiar with many other poets who took their place as part of the author's extended family - Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, Maxine Kumin. Those are the names that impressed me as I read about a girlhood lived amongst poets. But I'm guessing my ignorance might be refreshing to Cherington, whose young life was largely eclipsed by her father's world - his fame, his work, his friends, and his devastating ego. What a powerful story of a woman's years of grappling with her relationship to a parent, both beloved and understandably reviled.
July 31, 2020
Poetic License is a beautifully written, clear-eyed memoir describing the author’s journey from growing up as the daughter of a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet to becoming a successful consultant to business executives all over the world. Through archival research and interviews, Cherington carefully puts together a portrait of her family and especially her father—a talented but complex man. More importantly, she faced his abusive behavior with courage, moving toward understanding and forgiveness. In the process, she finds own voice and strength. The reader will be inspired by her story—and unable to put this book down.
August 21, 2020
This memoir reads like a novel, with characters, like the author's mother and brother, whose lives we follow as the story progresses, along with that of the famous poet, her father. There are many flashbacks that arouse interest in various events and outcome. The settings are well described, particularly ones that played a role in the author's early life, like Harborside, Maine in summer and Hanover, New Hampshire in winter. The father's betrayal of his daughter is hinted at early; we learn the details later and the author's making sense of it only at the end. This is a well-written and enthralling story. And it doesn't hurt that we recognize many of the famous names along the way.
August 27, 2020
Who are you to your father? Who is your family to the world?
There is a space between who you want your father to be and who he actually is. Gretchen takes a long deep look at her relationship with her father and explores the place she holds in her family, the roles she must take on, and the questions she must answer about who her family is, who her father is, and who she ultimately has become.
Readers will find that Gretchen's personal journey, her vivid descriptions of time and place and thoughtful insights on the complex relationships we each have with our families, has resonance with our own lives.
There is a space between who you want your father to be and who he actually is. Gretchen takes a long deep look at her relationship with her father and explores the place she holds in her family, the roles she must take on, and the questions she must answer about who her family is, who her father is, and who she ultimately has become.
Readers will find that Gretchen's personal journey, her vivid descriptions of time and place and thoughtful insights on the complex relationships we each have with our families, has resonance with our own lives.
December 19, 2020
A Gripping Tale of a Strong Woman
I read Poetic License in just two sittings. Gretchen Cherington’s descriptive writing reels you in and keeps you involved in her story from start to finish. The author weaves her personal journey into the life history of a famous poet, her father Richard Eberhart. As such a strong force, Eberhart dominates the narrative but it’s Cherington who you root for the whole way. Many women can relate to her battle to come into her own skin in the presence of a domineering, egotistical man immersed in a male-centered world. I cheered her ability to make sense of it all and find her voice
I read Poetic License in just two sittings. Gretchen Cherington’s descriptive writing reels you in and keeps you involved in her story from start to finish. The author weaves her personal journey into the life history of a famous poet, her father Richard Eberhart. As such a strong force, Eberhart dominates the narrative but it’s Cherington who you root for the whole way. Many women can relate to her battle to come into her own skin in the presence of a domineering, egotistical man immersed in a male-centered world. I cheered her ability to make sense of it all and find her voice
October 22, 2021
Memoir writers dig deep to uncover their truths. Gretchen Cherington had the added burden of unveiling ugly truths about a beloved literary figure whose behavior was tolerated by many who hadn't a depth of understanding about the extent of his abuse toward his daughter. Brilliant lights are often forgiven their flaws....
The author structures the book as a coming-of-age story which leads the reader through the various stages of understanding she naturally walks through in unveiling the unique characteristics of her family, her father's idiosyncratic ways, and finally, her father's abuse.
Courageous and heartfelt.
The author structures the book as a coming-of-age story which leads the reader through the various stages of understanding she naturally walks through in unveiling the unique characteristics of her family, her father's idiosyncratic ways, and finally, her father's abuse.
Courageous and heartfelt.
July 20, 2024
Gretchen Cherington spent much of her childhood in the 1950s and 60s in the company of America's best-known, lauded poets (Allan Ginsburg, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton) as her father was Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Eberhart, who often had literary luminaries to his home in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he taught at Dartmouth. The author of this memoir adored her famous dad, but was shattered by a betrayal in her teens which led to years of emotional turmoil and eventual courage to confront her family's well-cultivated myths. Her struggles to find her own identity and emerge from the shadow of a narcissistic, self-centered patriarch makes a compelling story of hurt and healing.
July 11, 2020
Cherington writes a compelling memoir. She relates the history of her parents, their meeting and marriage. For several years she delved into the papers of her father at Dartmouth, learning about his affair and other illicit activities while being lauded as a renowned poet. The author met many well known literary illuminati during her formative years. She had a complicated relationship,with her father and reveals a traumatic incident when she was 17. It's a interesting read. Thanks to NetGalley and She Writes Press for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
October 29, 2020
Truth-telling is a courageous venture, and Gretchen Cherington rises to the task. Extensive research of her father’s archived correspondence along with her own experience and introspection lead Gretchen to craft a beautiful narrative of finding her voice and telling a story that hadn’t yet been told. Insightful and engaging, this memoir informs the reader about the life of famed poet Richard Eberhart, revealing his light and dark sides and tracking Gretchen’s intimate and complicated journey of reconciling her relationship with her father.
August 19, 2020
I met the author through a virtual writing class and was instantly impressed with her desire to express her feelings and find the truth. This book is a reflection of that quest as it successfully weaves both into her story about reconciling her loving father (American poet, Richard Eberhart) with his many sides, from magnanimous colleague to narcissistic artist to sexual abuser. Fans of the early twentieth-century poets and lovers of the east coast will especially relate to Cherington’s world.
August 27, 2020
It sounds so glamorous. A Pulitzer Prize winning poet for a father. A vivacious party giving mother. Literary legend party guests such as Anne Sexton and Allen Ginsberg. Summers spent in a cottage by the sea in Maine. A curly haired child turning cartwheels across the lawn. But the glamour comes with a heavy price. The famous poet is self absorbed, inattentive and abusive. Gretchen Cherington struggles to make her own life and raise her own voice. A story of betrayal and hard won forgiveness.
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