Poetry Folio Edited by Carla Panciera and Cindy Veach
Amid the hothouse needs and cares
blooming around me, how often
I disappear.—Sarah Sadie
The poems in this folio explore one of motherhood’s dualities: the mother the world sees and the woman inside who possesses a sense of self that existed before her children were born and who persists despite them. Outwardly, she may be giving herself away by prioritizing her family; inwardly, she may be quietly taking inventory of what remains hers and thinking, as Anna Crandall writes, “I am homesick for myself.”
The voices in these poems ache with loneliness for the interior self. You’ll hear mothers share their most private thoughts about their own selfhood: Mostly, you are alone (Meredith Boe); And on some days I can remember the teddy bear’s name… even if I forget my own name (Nicole Herbert); … becoming / a mother has meant / learning to eat / my own heart (Natalie Marino). You’ll hear a daughter wonder if her own mother forgot to want for twenty years and then celebrates that when the rooms finally emptied her mother shook loose memory / of free spirit / wild ocean winds…(A. E. Abitz).
We like to think that these brave poems are in conversation with one another as each one confronts the push/pull of motherhood and helps validate a dichotomy of self that many women experience but too often keep to themselves.
Carla Panciera and Cindy Veach
Featured Poets:
Featured image is “Two Women” by Aristarkh Lentulov