Review by Ivy Rutledge Laura Grace Weldon’s poetry collection, Tending, tells the story of a life deeply felt. Read from beginning to end, the poems collectively form a larger poem detailing images of farm life, domesticity, family life, and beyond. Setting the tone for the collection, her opening poem, “Out of Body,” articulates a child’s sense of empathy, using carefully composed images of bodies, weight, and movement. She writes, “I worked to stay in the small body/my being was given,” then slips out of that embodiment, working her way through a series of expanding scenes. She sees “people hauling heavy…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Libby Maxey – I love the concept of four chapbooks published in one volume, four poets brought together in a conversation that only the reader can hear. Apparently, this kind of “quartet” is a specialty of Toadlily Press, and Mend and Hone (2013) is the latest in the series. When I began to read it, I expected to find myself listening for the substance of the conversation, but the greatest pleasure turned out to be the sound of the different voices—and they are very different. These poets, all female, do share common concerns, concerns common to most of…
Review by Dallas Woodburn – It is safe to say I have never before read a book quite like Margo Berdeshevsky’s Beautiful Soon Enough, winner of the American Book Review/Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize. During the first few pages of the book, I found the analysis-heavy part of my brain kept interrupting, trying to pin down the book into a definable category: was this fiction? Poetry? A novel-in-stories? But this is a book that resists labels. It does not fit into tidy boxes. And, I grew to realize more and more as I continued reading, that is part of what…
Review by Nancy Vona – The best books can be enjoyed over and over again. Kyle Potvin’s chapbook Sound Travels on Water is one such book: a satisfying collection of poems with nuances of meaning that emerge on subsequent readings. Potvin writes about ordinary moments: cooking soup, rocking a three year old to sleep, eating burnt toast, a high school reunion. Even washing laundry! Her everyday subject matter becomes remarkable and illuminating with her expert grasp of poetic forms and the elements of poetry. She is a mother, and her poems capture ordinary scenes of motherhood with grace and tenderness. Consider…
Hester Jones – A Show of Hands Hester Jones is a British Artist based in London UK. Her work is an ongoing investigation into culturally constructed, gendered identities; she is interested in the performative and participatory qualities of photography. www.hesterjones.com
Get the Issue Lesley Dame The Answer Even if it were a beacon, you’d be terrified. I mean, come on, this sudden light flashes in the starless sky and you’re, what, happy? You know that doesn’t make sense. You know that nothing is free; day and night each have their own purpose. You are a moving statue. You have no choice. Now! says the light. Not yet, says the voice inside your cold heart. Lesley Dame is co-founder of and poetry and nonfiction editor for damselfly press. She is author of the chapbook, Letting Out…
Eti Wade on the cover image from her series, MIGRANT MOTHERS – ‘Migrant Mothers’ is a series of photographs of mothers with their children. The title is a homage to Dorothea Lange’s famous photograph ‘Migrant Mother’ which recorded a young mother, aged before her time, holding three young children close to her body, her face showing the hardship she suffers through caring for her children while struggling with extreme poverty. My mothers are migrants, they are economic migrants who have left their home countries to work in rich, Western economies. To be able to gain entry and work long hours…
About Mom Egg Review MER editor Marjorie Tesser interviewed by Columbia University student Katherine Mullan. MOM EGG REVIEW is an annual collection of poetry, fiction, creative prose, and art that publishes work by and about mothers and motherhood. Celebrated writers and new talents explore the experience of motherhood from diverse perspectives and examine the nexus of motherhood with other identities, cultural and personal. Multi-ethnic and multi-generational, MOM EGG REVIEW tells important stories ignored or marginalized by other publications, and nurtures exciting literary talents. Mom Egg Review’s mission is to put fine literary work with diverse perspectives of mothers and motherhood…
Cynthia Hilts is a jazz pianist and vocalist, a prolific composer and lyricist, teacher, poet, practicer of many natural arts, and occasional painter. “Alexis” (and Zekai) is a rare pastel, as she usually works with watercolors. As a recording artist she has three CD’s under her name. A new CD with her chamber jazz ensemble “Lyric Fury” performing Cynthia’s original jazz compositions, will be released in spring 2014. She delights in the interplay of color, line, form, texture and harmony, within and between all her practiced and unpracticed arts. http://cynthiahilts.com
Review by Kathrine Yets – Everything comes down to the center of Tami Haaland’s collection When We Wake in the Night—the heart. No matter how hard I try, I am funneled there. The collection is divided into five sections—As Many Stories as Stars, Morning and Evening in Your Cup, Inquest, Late Constellation, and Silvery World. Each swirl with emotion into the middle like a nautilus shell. Let’s start light. The first section, As Many Stories as Stars, is filled with stories, from grandmother’s house to Cinderella on the steps. For the most part, these stories are lighthearted but each has…