Mary Mulholland’s the elimination game is a candid, sharply observed pamphlet that confronts ageing, mortality, and memory with wit, lyric clarity, and occasional surrealism. Moving between reflective lyric, anecdotal sketches, and formally playful pieces, the poems interrogate the social narratives surrounding older women, the shifting roles within families, and the absurdities of late-life reinvention. Mulholland’s voice is by turns defiant and tender, intimate and ironic, carving out a poetics of resilience that resists sentimentality while embracing emotional complexity.