Juana M. Ramos Mamá se ha ido Mamá y yo hemos entrado a una iglesia, no me resulta familiar. La nave principal muy concurrida. Cerca del confesionario un sacerdote me saluda con una sonrisa tierna. En el altar un ramo de rosas blancas. Mis ojos inquietos buscan la puerta de la sacristía y tropiezan con un Cristo blanco, ojiazul, famélico y herido. Me asalta la culpa. El párroco pone en mis manos las preces. No puedo abrir la boca por mucho que lo intento. El sacristán nos recuerda que se trata de una misa gregoriana. Caigo en un profundo…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Mireya Perez Bustillo Mami’s Homecoming Took us a lot to get to because a single request “I want to be with papi” is not so simple if you live in different countries But there we were your three black clad children, your sister and cousin Juana the furry green Andes in the West the spongy field ‘neath our feet the awning marking the spot dug up in the double plot papi there over ten years the snowy marble stone ready the crisantemas tia sent the pink roses and lirios bending waiting the red roses your first granddaughter handed to…
Maureen Altman Hay en tus espacios, unos míos Hay en tus espacios unos míos. Hay tanto de ti en la profundidad de mí. A veces nos veo como ríos, surcamos las entrañas de la tierra. Otras pinto extensiones de nosotras en los amplios cielos de un atardecer que invita. Nos ha visitado el descanso en contadas ocasiones, pero éste ha sido profundo cual espiral que siempre empieza de nuevo desde una plataforma distinta. Nos basta el eco de un caracol en tiempo presente y allí estamos. Como él, te muestras en tus surcos, y tus huellas entienden la danza…
Dafne DeJesus: “Mother’s Helper” Nature provides. Nature can also take everything back in a minute. What we all do to contribute to and take care of our Mother is absolutely essential to our survival as human beings. Before I met Dafne DeJesus, I met her garden. A Catskills street corner profusion of deep pink cone flower, red bee balm, yellow perennial sunflowers, orange California poppy and brown-eyed susan, deep purple iris, magenta phlox, and lush green ferns. Even the blue chicory growing along the edge of her street somehow looked happier than any other in town. Months later, dragged…
Word Up – MER Vox Reading: Soy Mujer—Latinx Poets of the Diaspora Saturday, October 26th from 3:30-5:30 PM. Word Up: Community Bookshop – Libreria Comunitaria 2113 Amsterdam Ave, Corner of 165th St/Luis “El Terror” Díaz W Join Mom Egg Review for a reading to celebrate “Soy Mujer – Latinx Poets of the Diaspora,” a poetry folio curated by Elizabeth Lara for Mom Egg Review’s MER Vox Quarterly, which includes the work of Jacqueline Herranz Brooks, Margarita Drago, Yesenia Montilla, Yrene Santos, Luna Flores, Xánath Caraza, Marianela Medrano, Juana M. Ramos, Mireya Perez Bustillo, and Maureen Altman, women who were born…
Review by Emily Webber The title of Laura Rock Gaughan’s wide-ranging and engaging debut collection Motherish comes from the short story, “Woman Cubed.” Dale is a contortionist preparing for an upcoming performance where Cirque recruiters will be in the audience. She imagines her dead mother present: She visualized the performance necessary to win over the Cirque: transcendent, personal best. Her special fan would be in the stands, boosting her chances. And Mama, admittedly not perfect, but motherish in the way she’s always been in life. Pushy and mouthy and indisputably on Dale’s side (148). This collection of thirteen stories…
Review by Lara Lillibridge Carley Moore is an essayist, novelist, and poet. The Not Wives is her debut novel. (Last year, Mom Egg Review reviewed Moore’s debut essay collection, 16 Pills). The Not Wives, set in New York City just before and during Occupy Wall Street, it is an explicit and gritty yet authentic and unapologetic exploration of issues of womanhood, motherhood, class and wealth in today’s society. I’m not regular. People think moms are boring and not political, but some of us are broken, queer, crazy, loud, sex-positive poet single mamas so don’t underestimate us or call us regular.…
Review by Christine Stewart-Nuñez Lauren Carter’s second book of poetry, Following Sea, summoned crisp winter air into the humid heat of my July afternoons. As Carter chronicles her ancestors’ journey into the Canadian wilderness and reflects on experiences with infertility, I wanted to tease her thread-lines from the sky and weave them around my body. The silk ribbons her words made slipped around my neck where they’ve stayed—stories sure and snug—despite the days that have passed since I closed the book. With its keen imagery and sharp insight, I think you’ll find Following Sea a compelling read as well. In…
Review by Lara Lillibridge Dorothy Rice earned her MFA in creative writing from UC Riverside, Palm Desert, when she turned 60. Gray is the New Black is a coming of age memoir for those of us who took a little longer than others to write it all down. Rice discusses being a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother and wife with an unflinchingly honest and unquestionably relatable pen. Although I’m more than a decade her junior, I saw myself on the page over and over—often painfully so. But although Rice is merciless in her examination of her life, she is never…
Donna J. Gelagotis Lee Reading & Book Launch Intersection on Neptune Winner of the Prize Americana for Poetry 2018 The Poetry Press of Press Americana (2019) Bridgewater Public Library Somerset Poetry Group 1 Vogt Drive Bridgewater, N.J. Wednesday, September 4, 2019 7 p.m. http://www.donnajgelagotislee.com