• Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER Online
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
    • Craft
      • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
MER – Mom Egg Review
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER Online
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
    • Craft
      • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
MER – Mom Egg Review
You are at:Home»Curated»Mothers and Children»Margaret D. Stetz – “Whistler’s Mother”

Margaret D. Stetz – “Whistler’s Mother”

0
By Mom Egg Review on January 13, 2022 Mothers and Children, Poetry, Uncategorized

Margaret D. Stetz

 

“Whistler’s Mother”

 

How strange how wrong a title
Arrangement in Grey and Black
for what begins in reddest flows of blood
and grows like bars of color layered on a rainbow
the mother-child relationship encompassing
serenity of blue and green of hope
sometimes a rage of purple
or yellow brightness signifying warmth
kaleidoscopically fragmented, intertwined.
++++And yet how common this desire of the son
to simplify to distance to abstract
to paint the mother as an object in a room
that he will leave, has left already,
imagining age as placid paleness
requiring nothing, satisfied with stillness:
the maternal body as a chair
an emptied lap
fingers folded in upon themselves,
not reaching clutching for another hand
once small, now large and rough––
++++the unseen hand that grips instead a brush
that signs the canvas
that offers immortality
stripped of comfort.

 


Margaret D. Stetz is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware. She has written and lectured extensively on Victorian literature and art, as well as being a poet, and her work always highlights women’s perspectives and achievements.

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleHilde Weisert – Belly
Next Article Kelli Stevens Kane – Moon Rocks

Comments are closed.

September 14, 2023

MER Online Quarterly – September 2023

September 14, 2023

Food as Nourishment and Metaphor – Poetry Folio

September 14, 2023

Jen Karetnick – Poetry

September 14, 2023

Raeshell Sweeting – Poetry

September 14, 2023

Elinor Ann Walker – Poetry

September 14, 2023

Kashiana Singh – Poetry

September 14, 2023

Anya Kirshbaum – Poetry

September 14, 2023

Merie Kirby – Poetry

September 14, 2023

Nicole Greaves – Poetry

September 14, 2023

Anna Abraham Gasaway – Poetry

Copyright © 2022 MER and Mom Egg Review
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Submit
  • Contact

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.