Review by Linda McCauley Freeman There is an almost indescribable moment when you first nudge your way into a hoarder’s house. An assault not only of your senses, but also of the very foundation of reality, stability and yes, sanity. About five years ago, I felt that sensation when I tried to open the door to my 90-year-old aunt’s apartment in Queens. I had no inkling of what was to come, no clue to prepare me when the door wouldn’t open more than a foot and I had to slide in sideways. In Deborah Derrickson Kossmann’s memoir, Lost Found…
Author: Mom Egg Review
MER Bookshelf – February 2025 Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Julia C. Alter, Some Dark Familiar, Green Writers Press, April 2024, poetry Julia C. Alter’s Some Dark Familiar begins as an excavation of the shadow sides of motherhood– often hidden from plain sight and public view. In the collection, Alter turns an unflinching eye on postpartum depression, maternal ambivalence, pregnancy termination, and the complex weaving of sexuality with motherhood. However, the author knows that no shadows are cast without light. Some Dark Familiar also seeks to illuminate the reclaiming of erotic power/true selfhood after giving birth. By the close…
For an online folio, MER is seeking poetry submissions on “Mothering Alone.” Please see notice below for details. Submit by 2/15/25.
U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo Life Quiver I think I felt my daughter speak to me whisper her presence in the depths of my core felt her name bubble in my mind Shamiso her brown angelic face showing herself through the tears the pull of an atom about to split in my chest I am bursting my blood watering the field garden from where she may grow If her roots are strong enough If my soil is filled with the magical possibility of this bliss am I ready to hear her gurgle, while I write and perform this poem of her inception in…
MER Bookshelf – January 2025 Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Dzvinia Orlowsky, Those Absences Now Closest, Carnegie Mellon University Press, October 2024, poetry. In her newest collection, Ukrainian American poet Dzvinia Orlowsky is a witness, never a bystander, ready to stare down the demons, to “cut yourself with a dull razor.” She sets up house among the nightmares of intergenerational trauma and, as far as anyone can, humanizes them. Through her work, Orlowsky prompts us to enter our own histories instead of just watching. Keetje Kuipers, Lonely Women Make Good Lovers, BOA Editions, April 2025, poetry. The…
Review by Joellen Craft Too Much to Ask: Bridget Bell and the Toxic Positivity of American Motherhood In the midst of a great era for “mommy poetry,” Bell’s debut, All That We Ask of You Is to Always Be Happy (CavanKerry Press, 2025), offers something new: a medically accurate and well-researched portrait of postpartum and perinatal mood disorders. Bell’s book lets us into the brain of a mother on the edge, a mother in need of help; and through her use of research and wrenching, to-the-point lyric, she reminds readers that more mothers than we’d like to acknowledge…
Review by Rebecca Jane With Praying to the God of Small Things, Wisconsin-based poet, Catherine Jagoe pays homage to Earth’s aliveness, within its microcosmic realms—here, insects reveal their ingenuity, and laced wings beguile the witness. These poems urge us to marvel at, say, those multiple eyes on the tiniest of creatures; relish insect wing patterns and mating behavior. Jagoe’s precise lyricism inspires readers to delight in moss, beetles, moths, feelers, mandibles—meet tiny beings on their turf. Catherine Jagoe—also the author of Blood Root, which won several awards, News from the North, and Casting Off—remains true to her gifts: her…
Review by Laurie Kuntz “Put back together by poetry…” is a poignant line from the About the Author paragraph, which is on the last page of Susan’s Vespoli’s book: One of Them Was Mine. This powerful book is a collection of poems about a mother losing a son to drugs, homelessness, and police brutality. The dedication reads: “This book is dedicated to my son Adam Vespoli who was shot and killed by police on March 12, 2022.” The dedication alone sends the reader reeling. The titles of the poems, “Letter to my Son’s Too Short Life,” “My Son As Hummingbird”…
Hilary King Investigations Are you watching your sad detective show our daughter asks us each evening. Sad L. A. detective, sad British detective, sad Swedish detective in gray blue suit standing in a gray blue field, white-shrouded body at his feet. We’re knee deep in mysteries right now, your father and I, these years of work and worry and wondering if we’ll survive to the next. What was left behind when we decided on each other, what late night robberies, what villain with slicked hair and cigarettes? Can we ransom back our youth with exercise and eating like birds? Will…
We’re on the list again! Pleased to have been selected as #3 (we got Bronze!!!) in Poetry! Thanks for the votes and the kind words and thanks to Chill Subs!