All That We Ask of You Is to Always Be Happy is a rallying cry from the trenches of maternal mental illness: a cry for visibility, for treatment, for compassion. Mixing academic research with personal experience, these poems push back against the rosy picture society paints of motherhood and instead lay bare the raw, neglected parts: the rage, the sorrow, the confusion, the ambivalence, the tentative joy. But these lines do more than simply give voice—they weave together to create a lyrical safety net, a road map to survival.

"In All That We Ask of You Is to Always Be Happy, Bridget Bell dismantles myths surrounding motherhood, offering a poignant and unflinchingly honest portrayal of the struggles faced by women around the world. Through a striking use of various poetic forms from the sonnet to the found poem, she sheds light on the physical and emotional challenges of childbirth, postpartum depression, and the complex realities of motherhood. She writes: 'We are not mothers. . . . We wear the mother mask.' The words resonate deeply, urging readers to question prevailing narratives. She writes: 'There was no pain. The pain was everything.' I was shaken by both the beauty and the brutal honesty of these poems. In the end, Bell explains that to speak against the lie is the way to survive. 'You are not alone,' she writes, 'Everywhere there is a woman awake with you.' All That We Ask of You Is to Always Be Happy is a powerful testament to the resilience of women and a vital addition to contemporary poetry collections."
—Blas Falconer, author of Rara Avis