MER VOX Quarterly – Summer June 2021 ESCAPE – Ekphrastic Challenge & Other Curated Poems Curated by Jennifer Martelli and Cindy Veach Featuring Art by Keisha-Gaye Anderson. Featuring Poetry by Gabby Gilliam, Martina McGowan, Sarah Dickenson Snyder, Dawn Terpstra, Jericho Hocket, Helen Bournas-Ney, Sonya Schneider, Martha Silano M.A.M.A. Issue 47 Art Henny Burnett Poetry Sarah Freligh Poem: Teaching My Mother to Zoom Tim Tomlinson
Author: Mom Egg Review
Welcome to the June 2021 MER VOX: Ekphrastic Challenge & Other Poems For this VOX, we’ve curated a folio of poems that engage with or echo Keisha-Gaye Anderson’s evocative work of art titled “Escape.” We loved Anderson’s use of colors and her imagery that depicted an expansion of “the mother,” both physically and metaphorically. To where does she escape? From what? Who is she? Where is she going? The poems—some written as ekphrastic responses to the painting and others chosen because we felt they added different dimensions—all interact with the movements in Anderson’s work. Dawn Terpstra describes the figure as:…
Gabby Gilliam Protogenoi The leaking nipple of a faceless mother speckled like Cerillos turquoise undulates through a polished universe all ass and hip and dripping milk, she turns her back on the expanse of space watches Prometheus’ gift raze heavenly body disarmed as her children launch tampon-shaped rockets into the sky feathery smoke grasping for lungs a downy blanket of pollution that drains the world of its color except for the feverish red of destruction and flame. Gabby Gilliam lives in the DC metro area. Her poetry has appeared in The Chesapeake Reader, The Fredericksburg Literary Arts…
Martina McGowan Earth Mother —After Pat McCade Mother to all Transforming stardust into life With the amniotic fluid That runs through my veins I am the holy sky walker Holy surface walker Life-bearer Life-bringer Hope for the living And respite for the dying All truth and light Firmly held within my locks Commissioned to speak Into all beings Breathing sage and time Bearing the candle of life The sacred center Until the other shore is reached A temporary end By celestial writ I speak life and memory Memorializing past lives Molding futures I am the holy walker Mother to…
Sarah Dickenson Snyder It May Be Up to Us This bruised earth so full of rockets and fire may need a woman’s touch, our slow-moving ripples, our functional nipples, the engine of braided bigness as the glue of healing. We feel the pull from far stars. Don’t be afraid of darkness— it’s the hinge to everywhere we can’t see, it’s where elsewhere resides. Remember how we open ourselves, let life rise, and know the dust of us. Of other worlds. Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, wants to be a better watercolor painter, and rides…
Dawn Terpstra [Re]Creation Myth with Bombs –after Keisha-Gaye Anderson Dawn Terpstra lives in Iowa where she leads a communications team. Her poetry appears in Main Street Rag, Briar Cliff Review, Citron Review, San Pedro River Review, and SWWIM. Her work was selected as Honorable Mention in the Midwest Review’s 2021 Great Midwest Poetry Contest. Her chapbook, Songs from the Summer Kitchen, is forthcoming in September from Finishing Line Press.
Jericho Hocket Night Shift (the Wheel of Fortune tarot) –for my mother Janice, upon her retirement You have remained awake through seven thousand midnights blessing life instead of fearing fatigue at your heels: a juvenile, striped yellow to hide among bulrushes and reeds. You have protected him, mother, with ferocity, fed him snails and kindness until his egg tooth reabsorbed. Your fingers have known how to bud flowers to draw insects he could eat. You have offered him all your small elements: fish, minutes, air, opportunities as you have supervised exhaustion’s growth in the shallows. Your heart has paid…
Helen Bournas-Ney Because Helen Bournas-Ney was born in Ikaria, Greece, and grew up in New York City. While studying Comparative Literature at NYU, she received the Anaïs Nin Award for her work on Rimbaud and George Seferis. Her work has recently appeared in Plume, The Ekphrastic Review, and the anthology Plume Poetry 7.
Sonya Schneider May I A barn swallow builds her nest nearby she loops the sky when we open the door and waits for us to close it before returning to her job of keeping eggs warm II Mom didn’t bring a bathing suit I helped her unfasten the harsh black straps of her bra sighing she stepped into the hot tub naked save for the silver clip that held her hair in place III Calliope hasn’t climbed a tree since last summer she bleeds into her sheets then peels them off her bed and hands them to me to…
Martha Silano With Headphones Blaring, I Devotional Warrior by the sea, in the grass that is also lichens and mosses, tiny flowers I think called blue-eyed Mary, the boats back and forth, and the wakes, and the waking of my mind as I unwind from the cinching and drowning in the buttonholes of words, in the floating experiments of sound. Today as I began to waken, I remembered a dream, but quickly it was gone, gone like that Dead song, When there was no ear to hear. Like all the dreams I have but can’t recall. Nothing’s gonna bring…