Megan Sound Bright, Shining Light I imagine some day I will tell my daughter about how, when she occupied my womb, I ate foods I believed would make her strong. I will tell her it must have worked because before she was a month old, when lying on her tummy she could push herself up and turn her head. When I tell her these stories of the earliest days of our time together, there will be a part of me that aches; the blank space at the beginning of my own life expands each time I realize all…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Tsaurah Litzky Birthdays Before and After, Puma Perl’s fifth solo collection, presents, as the title suggests, a compendium of poems, thirty-eight in all, in which she examines the woof and weave of her life. She recalls her birthdays and their aftermath, not necessarily in chronological order, as well as her adventures and companions along the way. This is a unique kind of poetic memoir where past and present alternate to create a document pulsing with life. The poems she creates bleed, breathe and foster a heightened awareness that is rare and amazing.The first time I…
Review by Sarah W. Bartlett This chapbook of poetry by award-winning Ellaraine Lockie – her 14th – is immediately unusual in that every poem in the collection has won its own individual contest award. That fact might intimidate the reader from going any further. But rest assured, Lockie’s voice is accessible, earthy, humorous; she is no stranger to verbal wordsmithing from the heart and experience. All of which make these poems the more delightful for their directness and relevance to a range of women. Mothers, wives, lovers, daughters – all will find resonance in some if not all…
Review by Emily Webber Even the luckiest people do not manage to get through life unscathed, and yet there are always moments of beauty and grace. The 38 small stories in Jayne Martin’s collection, Tender Cuts, reminds us of this certainty in life. In each of these stories, there are moments of loveliness that are also mixed with pain and sadness. Sometimes the grace is just in what we can survive and the fact that we still manage to move forward. Every story, none longer than a single page and many much shorter, is proceeded by a drawing, all…
Review by Carole Mertz Dowd’s literary Audubon’s Sparrow: A Biography-in-Poems is as delightful and colorful as the famous avian sketches of the renowned bird watcher. The poet records the lives of Lucy and John James via facts and imaginings, told mainly through Lucy’s viewpoint. Actual journal entries by Audubon are set in italics to distinguish fact from fiction. Dowd conveys other narratives through poems and imagined diary entries, as if written by Lucy. “Monsieur,” the opening poem, (p.3) describes Lucy Bakewell’s first meeting of Audubon, recorded as a diary entry, as if from Norristown, Pennsylvania in 1804. Today our neighbor…
Mom Egg Review vol. 18 – HOME Purchase the print issue of MER 18. Purchase the PDF issue (just $5) We proudly announce our 18th annual issue of Mom Egg Review, themed HOME. Back in 2019, in a different world, we conceived of an issue on the subject. Now, as we shelter in place, we experience new relationships with our dwellings. The diverse, and sometimes eerily prescient, works in this issue wrestle with issues surrounding the nature of home. Is a home a place, a feeling, a center, a community? Home land. Home base. Torn between homes. Unhoused. Also…
Patrice Boyer Claeys Author’s Note – On Writing The Machinery of Grace At the end of my poetry reading in a downtown Chicago high-rise, one man exclaimed, “We want your next collection to be an all-cento book!” It had happened over and over as I moved from private salons to bookstores to art galleries reading from my first book, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering. It was the centos that wowed my audiences. Most people attending were not writers, and they marveled to think that individual lines from other poets could come together—like magic—to create an entirely new piece. He got…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen The past, present and future are melded tightly in Rebecca Pelky’s debut book of poetry, Horizon of the Dog Woman. These poems sing of a traditional Native American philosophy of life. This philosophy encompasses generations of Native women who have chosen to exist within the continuum of colonial oppression. In Pelky’s worldview, the ravages of colonialism still resonate. The image of the “dog woman” embodies the strength of the feminine principle and its ultimate sacredness from which life springs. The dog image is also a constellation in the night’s sky and an archetype. Pelky…
What and Where is HOME? The new issue of Mom Egg Review considers the nature of “home”— Is a home a place, a feeling, a center, a community? Home land. Home base. Torn between homes. Unhoused. Also home neighborhood, others’ homes, away from home. The earth as home. Can work be a home? Can a poem be a home? Mom Egg Review writers explore “Home” through the lens of motherhood. Cover art – Susan McClain Craig Purchase the print issue. Purchase the PDF issue. Contributors to MER 18 HOME
MER VOX Quarterly – Spring 2020 Visions of Home: A MER VOX Poetry Folio Featuring Melissa Andres,Elana Bell, Ann Farley, Melissa Joplin Higley, Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, Veronica Kornberg, Libby Maxey, Jendi Reiter, Margaret Rozga, Brad Shurmantine, Tezozomoc, Pramila Venkateswaran, Nicola Waldron, Jane Yolen M.A.M.A. Issue 41 – Poetry Ann E. Wallace, Art Michele Landel You’re Invited! Mom Egg Review Vol. 18 “HOME” Launch Party & Reading Sat. May 9th, 4 – 6 PM Poets House NYC