Review by Sarah W. Bartlett – The author writes, ‘I’ve been writing different versions of this book my whole life.’ What woman doesn’t write and rewrite her mother-daughter story, if only in her head? What daughter doesn’t at some point long to know her mother? Or at least know enough about her to construct a context for what the daughter experiences in her own lived life? JP Howard is fortunate enough to have had considerable context. She knew, even participated in, her model-mother’s glamorous life. And she shares some marvelous vintage black-and-white photos from the 40’s and 50’s. Don’t let…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Reviewed by Lorraine Currelley – Mosaic is a wonderfully written collection of poems, where our senses bear witness. Poems are poetically weaved to passion, experience and craft. Margie Shaheed sculpts life. Her poems are full and rich with colorful imagery and phrasing. Her usage of language is clear, precise and free of struggles to embrace their meaning. You don’t read her words, you breathe them. Mosaic will resonate with its readers. There is an unspoken trust between author and reader. We join on this journey of joy and pain. There is always something new to be discovered in her writing.…
Max sat on the floor of the den putting the finishing touches on his Lego castle while he listened to his mother clanging pots and pans in the kitchen. Today was Topsy Turvy day. On Topsy Turvy days Max’s father worked late and Max and his mother ate pancakes for dinner. Pancakes were Max’s favorite. Max was a little afraid of his father. His father had deep lines around his eyes and mouth while his mother’s face was smooth and soft. His father’s hair was the color of the noisy birds at the beach, gulls his mother called them, while…
Sunday morning before my son stirs, I divide the milk for banking bag seven ounces for the ice box put aside a shot glass full for an offering * in one temple’s ritual re-enactment milk is flushed down a drain water returning to water – hundreds of school kids on a ferry boat drowned when the ship went down a white line of lanterns coiling down a river single wave forms going back to sea * inside the ceramic bowl a jizo sits awaiting activation, guardian of lost children – picture a puja, a milk bath a cleansing * ceremony…
Review by Zara Raab – This Side of Paradise “Best party in years!” quips the guest, as she departs, having spent the evening in her hosts’ luxurious guest bathroom reading The Cantos, stowed in her purse for just such occasions. Here is the kind of congratulatory, hypocritical cocktail party retort from which she hopes Ezra Pound will provide escape: “No, I don’t think I’m better than you because I’m wearing these Birkenstocks made from recycled rubber. I like how clogs look and don’t object to a shoe made from a near-extinct lizard, flayed while still alive.” [“Pride, Bickering with Vanity”]…
Review by Lorraine Currelley – I became a passenger on a journey of exploding colors, passion and emotions. Stopping to digest and to breathe in familiar experiences and images. Margie Shaheed’s poems and stories pull at you, demanding your full attention. Her poems and stories are filled with historical references and memory. She writes passionately about family, love, joy, societal ills and injustice. She does not write comfortable poems and stories. If you’re looking for a skip through the tulips book, Onomatopoeia is not your book. She captures authentic pictures of everyday urban life, its neighborhoods and people. A…
Second-one, smaller than the pea beneath the princess, you toss-and-turn me, my sleep lost in the branches of your mustard-seed-tree just sprouting around the trunks of my aorta. There are so many places to spread your leafy-you inside this insomnious greenhouse. Greedy for growth, you’ll take them all. For now, the world twines through my breath; your father and sister sleep, dreaming of roots and weather. Sage Graduate Fellow of Cornell University (MFA) and Director of Creative Writing and Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published Local News from Someplace Else (Wipf & Stock 2013);…
Mom Egg Review Spring Events Calendar Sun. March 29 Berkshire Festival of Women Writers Book Expo Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1 West St. Pittsfield MA 1-5 PM We’ll be sharing a table with Four Way Books. If you’re at the Book Expo, come by and say hi. www.berkshirewomenwriters.org Sunday, April 26 Mom Egg Review Lucky 13 Launch The Gallery at Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., NYC, Doors at 6 PM Please join us to celebrate the launch of our 13th issue, which features strong, varied work and a portfolio of poems on the theme of Compassionate Action, curated by Jennifer…
Review by B.A. Goodjohn I aspire to my own androgyny, / like these three women / sitting in the café near me, at ease / in suspenders, crew cuts, tattoos, / which can’t disguise / the cat-like softness of their eyes. “Gender” 6 On Saturday morning, I cracked open Laura Foley’s slim collection and read poems to the coffee machine’s slow dripping. I finished three before the carafe filled: “Wild Women Do,” free verse spare and sharp; then “Queer” and “Ghost Street,” both prose poems, both exploring words overheard and their impact. By the time I sat down with my…
Review by Katrinka Moore – In But Today Is Different Sarah Stern writes in the ancient tradition of erotic mysticism while grounding her poems in familiar American life. This poetry is womanly, drawn from the midst of life. The speaker tends to her dying mother, applies for jobs, shops for suits at a mall, imagines how she’ll feel when her children leave home, and has wild sexual fantasies on the subway. Oh — and she has conversations with a mystical voice, a spiritual guide of sorts. The different elements are braided together into a fully-lived, fully alive book of poems.…