return to the bush the women in the pink kitty hats need to go get their cousins. the apocalypse now crew has been selected to the run the country and it was not done by our hands. we have carried the weight of america’s decisions on our backs & in our wombs from the moment we stepped off the boat onto this land whose only goal was to devour us & our children. we haven’t sat down since we wet-nursed george washington’s children & built the white house. we haven’t stopped walking since mama harriet’s first journey into the forest…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Unplug, Rest, Be Grateful Self -care, a term we often associate with eating right, exercising and living righteously but if we really dig deep, self-care involves more than that. Although it sounds easy it is one of the most difficult things to do, especially for us women. By nature, we are nurturers, therefore everyone comes before us. Self-care is all about balance which is a very difficult quest to attain in life but not impossible. All we need to do is say no at times, unplug, listen to our bodies, embrace the quietness around us, stay still, breath and inhale.…
To Satya From Satya February 15, 2017 Before I left home for the last day of the writers’ conference, I placed the blank cards, the heart stickers, the 18 envelopes and the list of first grade kids’ names on the dining table. We made a sample card early in the morning, even before my daughter ate her cereal. We went through each step: fold the paper in half, place the large felt heart sticker on the cover, write “Happy Valentine’s Day” and “Love, Satya” on the inside, and then write the classmate’s name on the envelope. I passed along these…
Review by Anne Britting Oleson “For in that sleep…what dreams may come,” said Hamlet. He was speaking of death, but in Katie Manning’s new collection, Tasty Other, many of the poems stem from the way the hopes, fears, and hormones of pregnancy make themselves known through our subconscious and our dreamscapes. It’s the fear of the unknown: will I be a good mother? Will my baby be a boy or girl? Will my child be “normal” (whatever that means)? Manning’s poems channel some of the answers a mother-to-be might wake up with, answers which are by turn hilarious, frightening,…
Review by Julia Lisella I’m not a fan of found poetry, so it was with some apprehension that I read the prefatory note by the author of this brief collection that “All of the poems in this volume are sourced from the dialogue transcripts of the documentary Grey Gardens (Albert and David Maysles 1976), and are spoken by either Edith Bouvier ‘Big Edie’ Beale or her daughter, Edie ‘Little Edie’ Beale. The transcripts appear in the book Grey Gardens by Sara and Rebekah Maysles (Free News Projects 2010).” My dislike and suspicion isn’t fueled by a belief that found poetry…
Review by Margaret Rozga Award-winning poet Jane Satterfield’s fourth collection Apocalypse Mix differs in range, tone, and form from the Biblical apocalypse in the Book of Revelation. Satterfield does not use the epistolary form. Nor does she concentrate on punishment, plague upon plague, and separation of good from evil. Apocalypse Mix is more diffuse and layered. The apocalyptic seems rooted in the chaos and destruction caused by war, whether past or present, experienced directly or indirectly. Most often it startles by its juxtaposition with the comfortably familiar. Sometimes it is so tucked into routine daily life as to almost disappear.…
Tsaurah Litzky Artist’s Statement I started making collages six years ago after I suffered a back injury that prevented me from going out at night and having fun. I am a poet and writer and found myself spending my days writing self-pitying poems about my injury, isolation and loneliness. My evenings were spent binge eating ice cream. I knew I had to somehow take myself in hand. A good friend who is a collage artist told me he started making collages when he couldn’t sleep at night and suggested I give this a try. I remembered how much I…
Sarah Irvin Statement: Sarah Irvin creates artwork at the intersection of the social construct of motherhood and her own lived experience within the daily practice of mothering. She is interested in public perceptions and definitions of caretaking and how these definitions influence the caregiver as well as those they care for. Through the Child Citizen project, Irvin tracks her daughter’s development as a global growth chart. She marks her daughter’s height in public spaces using paint that matches the color of her daughter’s bedroom. The project changes as she grows, as the family moves to a new home or repaints…
Aleppo in the Heart of the Living Room Every soul needs a proper chaperone to say nothing of a champion. Especially after sloshing around this broken world. My heart lacks a tenant, though each chamber stands wallpapered and ready for occupancy. I’ve posted want ads in all the neighborhood papers: Open Room, Low Rent, Minimal Maintenance Required. I wait. Squint in the glint of pregnant light that streams like a laser through my blinds, reflecting off my daughter’s name in dainty gold plaque hanging around my neck. I think of Aleppo’s children, who live and die where light is blue…
Origami I’ve read about women who say they can’t write New mothers, their arms a cramped night, crescent They hold what they cannot yet tell. My baby was milky paper to me then, a smooth sheet, the inverse. But I can no longer hold her. Or write her. Your body, my almost grown girl, is yours alone. But know I want to fold your good bones into my lap. I know how inelegant it would look, a well-intended poem of poor proportion. I can’t pin tuck time through air, can’t write you to stay on the page. You are my…