Reviewed by Carole Mertz A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Manchester, and a nominee for Best of the Net, Patrice Boyer Claeys is also the recipient of a Certificate in Poetry from the Writer’s Studio of the U. Of Chicago. Her beautiful poetry collection speaks to me as an elegiac emblem of the poet’s love for her child. It is admirable in the way it conveys the pain and care involved in mothering a disturbed child, and perhaps even more admirable in its use of a rather difficult poetic technique: the cento poem. Some poems…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Reviewed by Michelle Wilbert While reading Laura Grace Weldon’s latest collection of poetry, Blackbird, I found myself anchored to continuity of time, family, place, and human experience woven into pieces glowing with vivid, knowable imagery of the quotidian mysteries that infuse every life. Written in the genre of naturalistic, free form poetry, this is thoughtful, careful work worthy of respect and careful reading. Crafted with nuance and wit, the poems are bracingly honest, redolent with subtle shifts in light and mood, with perception that rings true to experience. There is nothing static in these poems–they move with a dynamism that…
Reviewed by Janet McCann Haibun is an unusual form, a short prose piece with one or more haiku attached or inserted. It became popular in 17th century Japan, and has a growing number of practitioners here and now. It provides a new perspective, a kind of double glass in which something is seen in two distinct lenses—perhaps scientific and emotional, perhaps mythic and natural—and each perspective enhances the other. Helen Ruggieri proves to be a master of the form in Camping in the Galaxy, Haibun and Other Writings about the Natural. These pieces are mythic, natural, personal, and scientific all…
Reviewed by Christine Salvatore We know memory is a passport that never expires. —from “The Hurting Time” What if the day before your wedding the world imploded? What if years later, that marriage unraveled on an ordinary day? Such dichotomies and contradictions make up the heart of January Gill O’Neil’s third book of poetry, Rewilding. Even the title speaks of something against our human nature; is it even in us to make something wild again? Poems that move from a life contained, orderly, and domesticated to the wish for freedom make us believe that rewilding can be a part of…
Reviewed by Barbara Ellen Sorensen Visits and Other Passages by Carol Smallwood is a collection of poems, short essays, observations and vignettes that take the reader on an intellectual, yet deeply personal odyssey. A reader of this volume quickly realizes that the author is not just a mere observer, but an active participant in a magnified life. Indeed, she mentions viewing events through the prism of a magnifying glass on several occasions. What she compels the reader to come away with is the realization that life in all its ordinariness is not mundane but fantastic and fascinating, and awful and…
Reviewed by Sarah W. Bartlett Founder of Mothers Always Write, an online literary magazine about motherhood, Julianne Palumbo is no stranger to its emotional territory. A prolific poet, essayist, writing coach and mother, she clearly hits her stride when writing about her children. “50/50” is a seamless stroll spanning early motherhood to empty-nesting, woven on the warp and weft of turning 50. The parallel unknowns of parenting and aging are implicit in the construction of the collection. While every poem felt familiar to me as a(n aging) mother of three, some held such emotional resonance I found myself holding my…
Mom Egg Review will be participating in PressFest, a literary festival that is part of the PEN World Voices Festival. Come on out to browse the best independent literary publishers! Press Fest The PEN World Voices Festival Saturday, May 11, 2019 • 1-6PM The Brooklyn Public Library 10 Grand Army Plaza • Rain or Shine
Mom Egg Review Vol. 17 Launch Party and Reading Saturday, May 18th, 4-6 p.m. Poets House, NYC Admission $6 Advance Tickets Here
Please join MER at AWP Portland Bookfair Table T 9082 Meetup With the Editors – At the Book Table Fri. 3/29, 9-10 am
MER VOX Quarterly – Spring 2019 Experiencing Mythology in Our Lives An MER VOX Poetry Folio Curated by Jennifer Martelli and Cindy Veach The poems in this issue of VOX teach us how to remember an old, holy music in our homes, in ourselves. What a pleasure to explore the mythical and magical in the everyday… The poems impart an ancient history to all we touch. We loved reading these fusions of the sacred and the profane. We hope you, too, feel the pull of these ancient stories. It is our pleasure and honor to present work from these poets:…