Author: Mom Egg Review
Shared Breath: Motherhood in the Time of Climate Crisis Megan Jacobs Shared Breath: Motherhood in the Time of Climate Crisis, explores environmental grief through a twin-lens investigation: the interconnection of motherhood and climate crisis. Our collective loss in thinking of the Earth as a “mother”—who both provides for humans and should be cared for—has had devastating effects on the planet. My family and I live in New Mexico and these changes have become personal and visceral as we breathe in smoke from the largest wildfire in NM history. We must learn to acknowledge a “shared breath” with our environment. My…
Tamara L. Panici Mama’s Lessons on Sarmale Uită-te, to make sarmale, you must understand the difference between wanted and unwanted. The key being a perception, a human invention. Do not forget. You are both wanted and unwanted. Seen one way and the exact opposite. Do not let this confuse your stride, my scooped out soul, my little bruised one. To make sarmale, take the unwanted heads, the browning leaves chewed on the edges. Work through your hands. Fill each layer of cabbage with the flesh of forgotten beasts. Season with sweet spices and dessicated herbs. The grubby little…
Review by Emily Webber We all feel fear, and many of us are plagued by irrational fears that live in the deepest parts of us, the ones we never talk about with other people. If I let myself, I can spend hours thinking about how our bodies break down—cancer, accidents, violence, and natural disasters—and fall deeper and deeper into a black hole of fear. I run through all the ways my life could be cut short, so I’m not around for my five-year-old son and all reasons he may not outlive me. I don’t share these fears with others, but…
Review by Laura Dennis One does not soon forget a book that alliteratively offers a “huge, homosexual umbrella,” not just once, but three times, each framed a little differently, in a single poem. Indeed, the title of said poem, “Flamboyant,” could easily describe not only the umbrella, but also Melissa Studdard’s new poetry collection as a whole The reading experience begins with the front cover, which features a smokestack, fanned-out dollar bills, and a typewriter labeled “Poems,” bordered by fuchsia blossoms and overlaid with the cutout of a woman in an extravagant orange gown. The title, Dear Selection Committee,…
MER Best of the Net Nominations Poetry June 14, 22 (Summer Girls) Terri Linton, “Boogie Down Girls” March 13, 22 (Release) Jessica Cuello, “Dear Mother (Silence was my pride)” N.F. Kimball “The Burial” December 14, 21 (Ukrainian Voices) Halyna Kruk, “to Sylvia Plath” Translated by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky 10/14/21 (Storied Mothers): Richelle Bucilli “Cinderella Thinks About Motherhood” Fiction June 14, 22 (Summer Girls) Tiffany Sciacca, “P.F. 1982”
MER vol. 20 “Mother Figures” Print Issue PDF Issue Our twentieth annual print issue is themed “Mother Figures,” cultural icons representing motherhood. What is a mother figure? What have we been told or shown by them? What values do they reflect? What cultural learning do they assume? How does a mother figure deviate from one’s own experiences? Our contributors, established writers and emerging debut authors, responded with work that is resonant, original, and thoughtful, and which considers a dizzying range of mother figures: some worthy of emulation and some, cautionary tales, some selected and some foisted upon us. Here…
RaShell R. Smith-Spears A Writer Speaks of Lineage My foremothers were magic. Their nimble fingers squeezed syntax into cauldrons of rhythm and rolled juju across pages that glared with our erasure; they poured images into white spaces defined by the narrowed lines of Black people’s lives. They touched history with metaphor, making charms to ward off lies. As I wait before the page, inky wand in hand, I know my foremothers were magic. My foremothers were full of wonder. I speak their names as incantations against the spell of invisibility: Margaret. Toni. Gloria. Bebe. Leslie. Octavia.* They have many…
Review by Mindy Kronenberg In an interview in Literary Mama this past spring with editor Christina Consolino, Allison Blevins shared “As a mom, I have to sneak in moments to write. I write while sitting at a stoplight, pumping gas, waiting in the school pick-up line. Everything comes out as a line or phrase. Sometimes I just write titles. Often I have pages of images. When I start to get a feel for what the book wants to be, then I start thinking about the work as individual pieces and a collection. That is when the reader enters. I…