Review by Nicelle Davis – I love when poetry incorporates science to broaden the scope of its lyric content—simply put, I love Meredith Trede’s Field Theory. The most striking component of Meredith Trede’s collection Field Theory, is the book’s construction. The title, sections, epigraphs, and poem order all speak the multifaceted study of field theory. Field Theory plays a part in mathematics and Newtonian gravitation. Maybe more importantly for this collection of poetry, Field Theory is also a psychological theory which examines patterns of interaction between the individual and the total field, or environment. The collection as a whole works…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Moira Richards – One chapbook length poem. A song of legend and wit and word/sound play that draws the reader as the tides draw the sea to shore; as mythical Liban and her daughters draw their lovers to themselves. Fishwife tells the tale of the 300-year-young fish woman who, long, long ago, swims to the edge of land in search of a man to love. From that cover of reeds, she took in a bright tenor in a fervor—a man who’d been a bard. … …her old words flowed— an undercurrent foamed over by his verse. A daughter…
Review by Rachael Nevins – In the dozen stories in The Beautiful One Has Come, Suzanne Kamata explores the myriad ways in which we meet the unknown, whether it be an unfamiliar culture or an unexpected role. An expatriate living in Japan with her husband and twins, Kamata brings a generous imagination and heart to her work, which involves both American-born and Japanese characters as well as travel to Cuba, Egypt, Paris, and Australia in addition to the United States and Japan. In several of the stories, American hopes clash with the many constraints of Japanese society. The entertaining “Hawaiian…
Review by Suzanne Kamata – In Tara L. Masih’s story “Suspended,” a woman accidentally drives her car off the road and is saved by a tree: “The old tree somehow knows to hold her just so, and when she focuses again, she finds her car is suspended, engine taking her nowhere.” Stuck in its branches, unable to move her body, she licks condensation from the window in order to survive. By the time she is rescued, she has formed a bond with the tree. The unnamed driver experiences a gamut of emotions – anger, fear, relief, love, joy and grief…
Review by Sandra Ramos O’Briant – “Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.” -Alexander Pope Sarah Cavallaro’s Dogs Have Angels Too could be renamed “Leader of the Pack or How I Lost Everything, and Found Myself.” Here’s why: Lena is a fifty-seven year old account executive who has spent more than half her adult life at one New York Corporation when she is laid off. She loses her Upper East End apartment, her husband, and the $250,000 in her 401k to Madoff Securities. Oh, and menopause adds the final flourish to the cascading…
Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing, edited by Carol Smallwood and Suzann Holland; and Teachers Act Up!: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities Through Theatre, by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor and Mariana Souto-Manning Review by Ivy Rutledge In Women Writing on Family, Carol Smallwood and Suzann Holland have selected essays written by women with a variety of interests and experiences, creating a valuable guidebook. For most women, writing is a solitary practice, and this book reads like a much-needed conversation with a room full of mentors. The collection starts off with a topic geared to writers of sensitive material, which…
Like the memory deepest hidden, it drives you The you you can’t put down make sleep smother under logic The pilot light inside burning away the shapes and masks that sell you this story– a spinning web of deja vus and absurdities It presses you to Witness funnel every whirlwind through your mind’s eye until from your heart is wrung a battle song But then you see their hungry mouths reflections of your mouth and you bend lower to hear their tugging questions which are also your questions even now So you cradle them in your mother’s laugh and pretend…
transfer, held damply in her hand, the snow melting where her cap (nearly) met her coat, her scarf left where (behind), shed like the skin of a snake, useless as an escape tool, however jauntily it was wrapped, the pantone color the blue of a Mediterranean summer once seen in a postcard, the demarcation of blue and white wavering beneath her eyes and her feet ache, now, in the warmth of the bus, the slow thawing an agony she distracts herself from by repeating one line, then the next, as regular as the telephone poles she passes, one, then another,…
Hearing your heart beat Quick, definite, determined Inside of me The first time I knew instantly That you would be My moon child, My daughter For your room I bought A fairy Lounging on a Crescent moon You came At night— Moon, On its way To full When you began To speak, “Circle!” You pointed at its Silvery splendor Later: “Where did moon go?” Or “Mommy, the moon!” In daylight, Paradoxical, Standing equal With the sun As I know You will Recently, You ate the lovely Luna, Pronouncing it, “Yummy.” “A piece, mommy?” You offered. And it was delicious. “I…