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In her touching debut poetry collection, Pamela Bondar takes readers on a raw and courageous journey through trauma, healing, and reclamation of one’s own life. The collection serves as a deeply personal and yet simultaneously universal exploration of how we carry, process, and ultimately survive the unthinkable.
The poems trace the author’s path of discovering and processing repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. Bondar’s writing is refreshingly direct, eschewing ornate metaphors in favor of stark emotional truth. This straightforward approach makes the work all the more powerful, as seen in lines like “I was a little girl who loved her dad so much / She didn’t understand how you were also / The boogeyman.”
The collection is particularly strong in its exploration of how trauma fragments time and memory. In poems like “My Good Brain,” Bondar examines how the mind protects itself through repression: “The moment you left the room she blocked out / the memory / The betrayal of what had just happened / Time and time again.” This interplay between memory and forgetting runs throughout the collection like a connecting thread. Bondar’s work also tackles the generational nature of trauma, particularly in the powerful poem “Jump,” which explores how pain ricochets through family trees “like a birthmark.” Yet the collection is not solely focused on past trauma – it also charts a path toward healing and breaking cycles of abuse. The poet’s determination to protect her own children from inherited trauma becomes a driving force for recovery and change.
The collection’s structure mirrors the nonlinear nature of healing. Poems move between past and present, between rage and tenderness, between despair and hope. This emotional complexity is perhaps best captured in “The Love My Parents Had,” where the poet grapples with contradictory truths about family love and betrayal. The title poem, “Ice Cream, Ice Water, and the Boogeyman,” masterfully juxtaposes innocent childhood pleasures with lurking darkness, creating a devastating portrait of lost innocence.
What sets this collection apart is its unflinching examination of how trauma impacts adult relationships and self-perception. In poems like “Intimacy” and “Always,” Bondar explores the challenging terrain of love and trust after abuse. The final poem, “Always,” offers a hard-won vision of healing through love, though it resists easy answers and never suggests that recovery is simple or complete. The collection’s greatest strength lies in its ability to hold seemingly contradictory truths: the possibility of loving someone who has caused devastating harm, the challenge of parenting while healing from one’s own childhood wounds, the way trauma can both fragment and strengthen us. Bondar’s voice remains clear-eyed and honest throughout, never falling into either self-pity or false resolution.
While the subject matter is undeniably heavy, the collection also contains moments of hope and even humor, as in “The Dog and the Dishwasher,” where everyday domestic scenes become opportunities for healing and connection. These lighter moments provide necessary breathing space. Moreover, the calm, reflective writing style allows Bondar to approach serious topics in an approachable way.
“Ice Cream, Ice Water, and the Boogeyman” is not always an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one. Bondar has created a work that speaks not only to survivors of abuse but to anyone interested in understanding the ways humans navigate profound pain and find their way back to themselves. The collection serves as a source of healing, showing how poetry can help transform unspeakable experiences into shared human understanding.
For readers who have experienced similar trauma, these poems offer solidarity and validation. For others, they provide insight into the complex reality of trauma survival. Either way, Bondar’s brave and honest voice leaves an indelible mark, reminding us that healing, while never perfect or complete, is always possible.
You can buy “Ice Cream, Ice Water, and the Boogeyman” by Pamela Bondar here!
