December 2016 – WINTER In This Issue POETRY: Identity – A Folio Curated by Jennifer Martelli and Cindy Veach GALLERY: Megan Wynne – Art Curated by Ana Silva CRAFT: Poetry as a Reflection of Self on the Page Curated by J.P. Howard POETRY: Identity – A Folio Curated by Jennifer Martelli and Cindy Veach The poems in this folio consider the “Mom” identity from both the mother’s and child’s viewpoints and speak to the complicated relationship that exists between the iconic Mom and Mom as an individual. Each of the poems challenges us, in its own unique way, to confront…
Author: Mom Egg Review
October 2016 – FALL In This Issue VOX MOM: “Stretch Marks” Curated by Alana Ruben Free and Akilah Mosley FEATURE: “Getting It Right” – Novelist Lore Segal Interviewed by Laura Geringer Bass VOX MOM: “Stretch Marks” Curated by Alana Ruben Free and Akilah Mosley “Stretch Marks” is collection of poetry by a group of English language writers who have, temporarily or permanently, made their home in Israel. Whether born speaking English, Dutch, German, Hebrew or Arabic, each of us has had to stretch to adapt to a new tongue, new culture, and/or new religion…. Featured Writers: Akilah…
Review by Lisa C. Taylor TONGUE SHAKERS: Interviews and Narratives on Speaking Mother Tongue in a Multicultural Society, Margie Shaheed, Ed. This collection of interviews explores the obstacles and triumphs faced by immigrants as they learn English and begin to blend their identity and their mother tongue with the culture and language of the United States, their adopted country. The timeliness of this collection is part of its appeal. Immigration has moved from a vital part of our modern society to a political talking point. Hearing the real voices of people who struggle to simultaneously blend in while holding onto…
Review by Deborah Hauser Clothesline Religion, Megan Buchanan’s debut collection, is a paean to motherhood, domesticity, and transcendence. The poems flow freely without constraint, sections, or epigraphs. As explained in the “Author’s Note” (which I urge you to read), after trying different methods of organizing the poems, Buchanan discovered that they lined up alphabetically. Her devotion isn’t bound by scripture. She finds “God…everywhere” (54). She is spellbound by “ordinary magic” (49), finds grace in “stacks of white cotton diapers”(3), redemption in the “new slivermooon” (41), and joy in a child’s hair. The clothesline, and it all evokes, appears frequently,…
Review by Michelle Everett Wilbert I was 41 years old, a midwife and the mother of three children when our youngest daughter was born with spina bifida; a spinal defect of the earliest weeks of fetal development wherein the spinal cord fails to close properly. The ensuing sixteen years have been times of great joy and some sadness and frustration as we’ve tried—and often failed—to navigate what we’ve come to refer to as “disability world” in our pursuit of a life for our daughter outside a system of “services” designed to support people with disabilities which too often results in…
Bettering American Poetry 2015: An Anthology Eds Allen, Kim, King, Koo, Martinez, Ramirez, Sama, Villarreal & Wallschläger Reviewed by Carole Mertz The Bettering American Poetry 2015 project grew out of discontent. A group of editors were disgruntled by the fact that an author, Michael Derrick Hudson, received publication at a site by resubmitting a previously rejected work to the same venue, this time using an Asian-sounding nom de plume. His poem was published in The Best American Poetry 2015 without a word of explanation about the origin of the selection. The above-mentioned enraged editors were tired of the control…
Review by Janet McCann Sarah Dickenson Snyder is a mother and English teacher as well as a poet who has published in a wide variety of journals and won several awards. Her chapbook Notes from a Nomad is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. The Human Contract is her first full-length collection, and it is a true pleasure to read. This book looks at mothering and daughtering over generations and examines a woman’s life in these roles. Much of its delight lies in the sustained sensibility of the speaker, who is consistent in how she observes and interprets the world…
Review by Lara Lillibridge Diane Stiglich, a writer and painter in Hoboken, New Jersey, captivates readers with her debut novel. A quick read at 134 pages, it is officially three interconnected stories, but they flow into each other so seamlessly that it feels like one continuous tale. A dreamlike work of magical realism, Have You Seen CindySleigh? takes us down many unexpected paths, filled with randomly appearing bottles of champagne, iPods, and a truck named Karen. We encounter a priest, gods, demons, and shape-shifting animals. In what feels like a dream within a dream, The Author herself appears to…
Review by Anne Britting Oleson Donald Rumsfeld famously said that we don’t know what we don’t know. In her literary memoir run scream unbury save, Katherine McCord makes this very clear, and this engenders a certain anxiety in her audience. The book is constructed as a series of prose poems, sometimes with innocuous titles like “SHELVES” or “CAMPING”; sometimes one of those titles is drawn from the content of the piece on the preceding page. Sometimes, though, not: as in “ADDENDUM/APOLOGIA/ERRAT(A OR UM) AND ADJUNCT/ADJUNCT PROFESSOR (LATER THAT (THE PREVIOUSLY NOTED) DAY). What is going on here? Or, to…
Review by Mindy Kronenberg In World Enough and Time, Mary Makofske finds inspiration in the persistent observation of human engagement. Whether in an overheard conversation or the witnessed pantomime of curious children, we learn to fill life’s cautionary path with ritual and self-declaration. The poem of the title that is a line in Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” begins with an overheard come-on at a fraternity party, an intimate and unlikely recital of verse that despairs for the fleeting pleasures of beauty, youth, desire, and love. The impact of the 17th century work in its own time is…