Review by Judith O’Brien – It’s hard to turn away from the poems in What Can Be Saved. The two speakers— Lovey, with what today we’d call “special needs” and her dedicated Momma—speak directly to the reader in authentic voices. Each poem is titled simply with the speaker’s name. Perhaps Taylor’s greatest skill lies in her ability to step aside and let Momma and Lovey tell the reader what it’s like to be a single, worried parent, what it’s like to be “crazy”. Although they represent thousands of people in similar situations, each family’s story is unique, so Taylor takes…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Nicelle Davis The Forest of Sure Things by Megan Snyder-Camp Tupelo Press 2010 $16.95, Winner of the Tupelo Press / Crazyhorse Award for an outstanding first book – As a new mother, I’m often surprised how many of my adult activities mirror my childhood play life; I care for my toddler boy the way I loved my baby dolls. Of course parenting a living child and raising a doll are different experiences, but the emotional similarities between play and reality expose the links between imagination and empathy. It is this magical exchange between imagined and real that Megan Snyder-Camp…
When polishing sterling silver, Use a soft cream and a damp cloth Lest you scratch the shiny surface Of what you never meant to mar. A mother of four children, Jane Blanchard divides her time between Augusta and St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. Her poetry appears this year in Decanto, The Enigmatist, James Dickey Review, Light, Magnolia Quarterly, New Plains Review, The Oxford So & So, Pearl, Penwood Review, REAL, RiverSedge, Sandy River Review, Thema, Third Wednesday, Trinacria, Turtle Quarterly, and elsewhere.
I did eight loads of laundry. I paid the bills. I cleaned the house. I filled out medical forms. My hair was pulled up in a haphazard top knot. My outfit consisted of waterproof track pants and a thermal shirt. I hadn’t brushed my teeth – my definition of being a “good” Mom. My ninth grade son called to say he was bringing two friends home to play Wii. Could they stay for Friday night dinner? I defrosted hamburgers from the freezer. My seventh grade daughter said that she’d be taking the subway to get to a downtown slumber party.…
Once, a few years ago – I think I was around eight at the time – I was in this foster home and the woman there – Barb was her name – promised to read me the entire set of Little House on the Prairie books. My mom Anna was trying to get clean again and she would come visit me on Sundays. I would cry every time she left. Not that I was happy with her. I wasn’t happy anywhere. It was the overwhelming uncertainty of it all. How long until I was back with her? How long until…
You have trained your restless haunches for eight months now, within me, growing by skull and brow, ribs and toes—simple kicks and I contain the world. An oak tree’s tangled loin inhales, a scratch of breath drawn over bark and knots. The exhalation rides the limbs, slides over leaves to shake an acorn free—it strikes the grass and gasps. A lover gasps within a woman, shakes a stigma to the floor—she asks for more. Lava gropes volcanic slopes to harden and expand them, and everywhere explosions rock the world. A bomb begets a swaddling cloth, a baby’s cry mushroom-clouds the…
I drive across the Henry Hudson Bridge and get off the parkway at Dyckman Street, an exit I have always associated with my mother but never taken before. It is mid-August, blue-skied and not too hot, and my mother is spending a long weekend with Paul and me. Our outing this afternoon is to drive through Inwood, the section of northern Manhattan where her family lived for eight years when my mother was between the ages of two and ten. In an old black-and-white photograph I have of her from those years, taken on the sidewalk of a New York…
I believe in Literary Citizenship. I really do. I believe in it in caps, as you see. To me this term has meant writing and sharing my literature, as well as advocating for literature through attending and creating literary festivals/conferences/readings. Case in point, I’m part of an extremely active committee for the 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival—happening May 13-14th right here in my little, slightly wackadoo but lovely nonetheless, tourist town of Salem, Mass.—and the organizing has really been kicking my butt. I co-direct a performance series as well (and adjunct, and mother two kidlings, and workout, and am a wifey…
MamaBlogger365 – Mother-Centric Lit by Marjorie Tesser on the Museum of Motherhood Blog I edit a publication called The Mom Egg, an annual literary collection of poetry, fiction, creative prose and art. The Mom Egg publishes works by “mothers about everything, and everyone about mothers and motherhood.” Why is a mother-centric literary publication important? The demands, pleasures, and monopolization of time and mental energy of motherhood can be overwhelming. How does this affect us as artists? Creative mothers need a welcoming venue that fosters artistic expression. While the media tends to homogenize mothers into broad classifications (soccer moms, tiger moms,…
These are the rules regarding glitter. Listen up. The glitter has been placed in view but out of reach. This is deliberate. The “glitter tray,” the cardboard box originally designated for shaking and shining, is no longer available to you. Technically, it is not a tray if you decide to ride it down the stairs. More like a sled. No, that doesn’t mean you can go sledding in the house. No, I don’t think it’s cute that you left a shiny trail. No, I don’t like slugs. Yes, Mr. Dyson is a very good British vacuum, but every appliance has…