Reviewed by Debbie Walker-Lass
Level Watch
by Mary Ardery
June Road Press
September 2025, ISBN-13: 979-8987432860
This debut poetry collection by Mary Ardery is a powerful statement about addiction, recovery, and a unique treatment option that takes the participants deep into the Appalachian mountains. This rugged, challenging treatment offers participants a means of strengthening their resolve to lead a sober lifestyle while also challenging, and improving, their physical fitness.
As a woman who jump-roped the lines of addiction since a teenager, the speaker of the book had unique personal qualifications for the job at hand. In ‘Self-Portrait From The Year The Fire Started,’ she states: “My parents must have believed it, the way my mother pressed a prescription pain killer into my palm, her sympathy palpable. I returned to choir camp, sedated and hung over, and still, I drank again that day.”
The speaker of the poems deftly describes the spectacular beauty of the Appalachians, which serves as a stunning juxtaposition to the physical and psychological pain experienced by the women, trying their best to stay “Clean.” Paired with the harsh conditions they endured during treatment, including carrying and pitching tents, lugging fifty-pound plus rucksacks, and taking nightly turns guarding the “Bear Hang,” (where huge bags of pasta, quinoa, and beans were kept safe, in the tree tops) and it becomes clear: This treatment was no stroll through the forest.
As a former mental health professional, I recognized many of the touchstones inherent in Ms. Ardery’s text, from the tenuous hope held for the participants’ successes, to the crushing self-blame that comes with your own perceived failures. These “failures” are unavoidable while working with individuals with the challenge of severe and persistent mental illnesses, and / or addictions, however, they can feel very personal, as if our own inadequacies caused the issue.
The speaker has a direct line that runs from her heart to the hearts of the women she is striving to help. At times this line becomes clogged, and there is a break, perhaps because of the strain of her own unresolved conflicts with drugs and alcohol, (Not uncommon in the field) but never to the detriment of the work. In fact, her brilliant honesty and self-doubt drew me in as a reader, leaving me to draw my own conclusions about how she was changed as a person as a result of this lived experience, which is what all good poetry invites us to do.
The ruminations that result in some poems that repeat themes are important to consider both individually, and collectively, as they give deep insight into the grief the speaker felt about a significant loss, both personal, and professional.
I would highly recommend this book not only to people that love poetry, but also to those that don’t usually read it, especially professionals in the field of addiction and recovery. This book is filled with the love notes you would never be able to write as a case note. It is important work that conveys the difference between a job and a passionate interest in assisting people.
About the reviewer: Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in Collaborature, The Rockvale Review, Green Ink Poetry, The Ekphrastic Journal, Punk Monk, Poetry Quarterly, The Light Ekphrastic and The Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. Debbie was proud to be nominated by TER for the “Best Small Fictions, 2024” anthology. Debbie is an avid Tybee Island beachcomber and lover of all things nature. She also enjoys collaborating with Jahzara Wood, they write poetry as “The 1965.”