Please join us! “Maiden, Mother, Crone: A Reading Celebrating 22 Years of MER – Mom Egg Review,” on Saturday, May 31, 2025, from 2-3 p.m. at the theater inside Cinema Salem.
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Teresa Tumminello Brader Lisa C. Taylor’s novel The Shape of What Remains (Between the Lines Publishing/Liminal Press, 2025) is narrated by Teresa Calvano, a professor, wife, and mother whose second-born child was killed at the age of six. Her story opens ten years after the tragic accident. “I’m living, though my life for the last ten years has been more like the skin a snake sheds. The shape of the snake remains but there’s no substance.” (107) As her story spools out, Teresa—she’s also known as Terri and Tess, depending on the relationship—reveals her deep mourning; her…
MER Bookshelf – April 2025 Curated by Melissa Joplin Highley Alice B Fogel, Falsework, Bee Monk Press, August 2024, poetry These poems refuse sleep. They remind us that life is a cycle of filling and emptying, of finding and having and losing, and that even as hope dips out of sight like a loon, “love / in the end … might still exist.” Falsework, in construction, is a temporary but necessary form that allows what will become the lasting edifice to be built upon it, after which the support structure is disassembled and discarded. In these poems, a…
Review by Sharon Tracey In Mycocosmic, Lesley Wheeler’s sixth poetry collection, the poet uses the metaphor of fungi to thread a masterful spell of poems that shimmer with dark energy, electricity, and transmutations as she explores childhood, family history, desire, and identity and writes her way toward both understanding and acceptance. Throughout, there’s a search for connection and a recognition of our own impermanence as the work of the natural world toils on with or without us. Poem titles provide a sense of the ride to come. There’s “Sex Talk,” “Dark Energy,” “An Underworld,” “Flammable Almanac,” “Family Tree” and…
Happy Poetry Month! Many of us try to write a poem a day for the month of April, 30/30. I admire those who follow through without stress, but for many of us it seems difficult to “write on demand,” to find the time. As a new mother, Sarah Mirabile-Blacker found her writing practice negatively affected–until she arrived at a strategy to keep her pen moving. Read her craft essay for ideas and inspiration. Sarah Mirabile-Blacker Something New – Haiku One of the greatest things I’ve struggled with since becoming a full-time mom has been staying in touch with…
Review by Rebecca Jane Planetaria re-charts the stars with the poetics of science. Monica Ong, a designer and experimental author, has invented a new genre that spins the literary, visual, and scientific arts to “map us from want to that jeweled inner sky” (11). This book is a fresh experience, like a wander through an art gallery in a newly discovered universe that has always been here. We can say this collection of poetry deals with themes of Asian diaspora, family, and science-based facts superimposed upon the human heart’s layered emotional cosmology. But the kinds of naming and categorization that…
Review by Rebecca Jane Some Dark Familiar holds nothing back, but charges, full force, into the reader’s interior with hard truths about how reality behaves when a woman chooses to be a new, single mother. Poignant images take aim and hit their target: “Now I sit in this body of the mother: / part straightjacket, part hot-air balloon” (6). These poems navigate womanhood, especially when we are mothers and feel “sucked into the storms of our anatomy.” Julia C. Alter won the 2023 Sundog Poetry Book Award for this remarkable collection. Alter received an MFA from the Vermont College…
Review by Emily Webber Lee Upton is a prolific writer with short story collections, poetry books, novels, and even a libretto among her published works. Now with her latest work, Wrongful, she adds a literary mystery to the list. The novel opens at a literary festival for a prominent children’s author and novelist, Mira Wallacz, who has disappeared in the middle of the event. As the participants look for Mira, it becomes clear their relationships with her are laced with jealousy, competitiveness, and focused on how her fame impacts them. Another novelist, Luisa, muses while searching: She squirmed against the…
MER will celebrate the publication of Volume 23 with two online launch parties on Sunday, April 27th, and Sunday, May 4th, both at 5:30 PM Eastern time. These will be quick, lightning-style readings of one poem or prose excerpt per reader. We look forward to the readings, and hope you can attend. Readings will be hosted by MER editors Marjorie Tesser, Jennifer Martelli, and Cindy Veach The public is welcome to attend, but pre-registration is required. Readers are also required to pre-register. Register here for April 27th Register here for May 4th READERS FOR APRIl 27 Aimee Suzara Amanda Auchter…
Alexis David The Walled Forest —after David Baker’s “Can You Say It” There was a calling. Yes, the winter leaves. They were calling me— sparrows, soil, the blue tones of light and a rhododendron tree. It was a calling, yes, a calling, inside of me. The day progressed from two to three. We asked, wondering, if soon— how could it possibly be? I could be not just me, but two. But, three? (forgive me for wanting so much) I was a woman dancing, a Chanel scent, a daisy opening, a romance (inside of me). The tiny cells, the petals, both…