In Gathering Memories, Collecting Dust, ordinary moments become the markers of an extraordinary life: a newborn observed with wonder, a lost toy bunny, a first day of school, a daughter leaving for college, a mother’s memory beginning to fade.

Spanning eight decades, this reflective poetry collection moves from a 1950s childhood to the uncertainties of motherhood, the tenderness of grandmotherhood, and the quiet reckonings of aging. Through vivid snapshots of family life, childhood discoveries, old rituals, changing generations, and remembered losses, the poems reveal how the smallest incidents can shape who we become.

Warm, poignant, and deeply relatable, Gathering Memories, Collecting Dust invites readers to look back on their own lives and recognize the meaning hidden in ordinary days whose importance was not valued at the time.

Fran Abrams, Rockville, MD, began writing poetry at the age of 73 after retiring from her job as a nonprofit arts administrator and deciding she wanted to write in a form that was completely different from the work she did in her day job. Fran began taking poetry writing classes at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD, in 2017.

Since then, her poems have appeared in print and online in numerous journals including The Raven’s Perch, The Write Launch, The Orchards Journal, The Delmarva Review, and Gargoyle. Her poem titled “Waiting for Snow” won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House (WWPH) 2021 Winter Poetry Prize. One of her poems was nominated by Gargoyle Magazine for a Pushcart Prize in 2023. Her poems also are included in more than twenty anthologies, most recently America’s Future from WWPH, and Bearing Witness from Sligo Creek Publishing, both released in 2025.

She has had five collections of poems published prior to this one—the full-length collection, I Rode the Second Wave: A Feminist Memoir (Atmosphere Press, 2022), two chapbooks, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras (Finishing Line Press, 2023) and Arranging Words (Quillkeepers Press, 2023), a collection of Nonet poems, titled Traveling on the Number Nine Bus (Kelsay Books, 2025), and most recently Nearby Voices: Persona Poems (Bottlecap Press, 2025). At the age of 81, she is delighted to be sharing her sixth collection of poems.

To learn more about Fran’s poetry, please visit franabramspoetry.com.