Karren LaLonde Alenier Granddaughter Clara Spera explores Bubbie Ruth’s big closet my mom Jane Ginsburg was never hamstrung by her mom’s inattention no rather she and her brother were often smothered it’s not as if Bubbie caused collapsed lungs Bubbie and I are short people among our family clan our love another gauge for our largeness the way we blather sweet nothings to those we hold dear not stung by formalities I shopped her closet once I donned her cashmere coat beckoned to her as she bent over briefs look it fits me so well me too not a…
Author: Mom Egg Review
December 2021 Welcome to the new issue of MER VOX Quarterly. We are pleased to present two new folios in this issue. “Ukrainian Voices” presents the work of Ukrainian poets, some in translation. Our latest Mother Figures folio, “Mother in Objects,” explores in prose and poetry the way physical objects come to evoke some essence of the mother. Our latest M.A.M.A. words-and-art collaboration introduces an installation at the Museum of Motherhood, Mother Tree by Helen Hiebert, and Nest by Martha Joy Rose and Polly Wood. Check out our latest book reviews, here. Ukrainian Voices – A Poetry Folio Curated…
Welcome to the December 2021 Mom Egg Review VOX: Ukrainian Voices While reviewing submissions for the upcoming MER 20 print issue we became intrigued by the poems by Jane Muschenetz, a Jewish refugee from Ukraine to the United States, that wove two worlds and two languages into a tapestry telling a story of hunger, displacement, and motherhood. In her poem, “Definitions,” Muschenetz writes, “This is poetry?” English words are interlopers in my mother’s mouth they wear a disguise to fit in ‘Th’—‘S’ sounds take on hard ‘Z’ edges ‘V’s stand in for ‘W’s, ‘R’s roll with it better, but They’re…
Halyna Kruk Translated by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky to Sylvia Plath O, Sylvia, he entrapped me in the calico fields of small squares. Yes, he ensnared me in hemmed flaxen fields. He wants to catch me, to encircle me, O, Sylvia, he wants to mark me in the soft oblivion of cotton fields, to enter me in some roster as an endangered breed, Sylvia, tie me down by the ankle with two or three kids so I can’t ever leave him, only: – crumple these checkered fields, – irrigate these ribbed fields with my sweat, – grow weak…
Natalka Bilotserkivets Translated by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky Fish Always in profile, gray and flat, a mermaid’s tail, cloudy crazed eye… Unhooking you, the hand holds onto your gills simply and cruelly. Always in profile and always mute, fragile spine, weak rib lattice… Old age comes. Used to it, my soul has no rest. Water stands in mothers’ wombs, nature is silent—and yes, like the first fury, its bottomless bowels trembled. Hold on to life! It slips from your hands like a fish, leaving in your palms slime and dirt, diluted with water. *** A stone smile…
Ania Chromova Translated by Ali Kinsella untitled the old lady on the street offered my children some candies: are they yours? how darling. why only two? have some more. just two or three more. and make ‘em just as cute. why are you laughing? I’m serious. you’re still young, don’t get it. look, take a look. what’s at my back? death. what’s at your back? death. around the corner to the right—war. to the left—war. under our feet—bones. the sky is silent, who knows what it’s thinking about. I say this from the bottom of my heart. and don’t…
Jane Muschenetz DomestiCity When I close my eyes, the dishwasher sounds like a train on tracks. I am transported from Kitchen to Poetry As a child, I dozed on Soviet trains my American kids were soothed by cars Some mothers swear by vacuums, or the gentle rock and hum of a washing machine’s cycle There is something relentless in both the doing of dishes and the oncoming train… So many modern conveniences lull us to sleep Homeward Bound We don’t have a cow to forget to milk, instead We have Instacart, but I forget that too Unpaid are the…
Dzvinia Orlowsky Newton’s Cradle “You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th… with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.” – Erma Bombeck 1. A crazy good time for everyone drinking and blowing themselves up, for the guns, bells, and the bonfires, and for the flames hurled towards the tops of buildings. But not for our dog swaddled in an old nightgown, shaking. Not for my mother anxiously rocking it, pillows propping her up in bed. Not for silence beating with an animal heart,…
Mother in Objects – A Folio of Prose and Poetry Our latest Mother Figures folio depicts how objects evoke the mother: our writers explore, in prose and poetry, concrete representations of the essence of a remembered parent. Karren Alenier – Granddaughter Clara Spera explores Bubbie Ruth’s big closet Sarah W. Bartlett – Linen Hankies Patricia Carragon – i’ve put on my mother’s shoes Jessica Feder-Birnbaum – If the Shoe Fits Linda Lamenza – My Inheritance Deborah LeFalle – Haiku José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes – Poem with the Yellow Pages and Rotary Phone Martha Webster – The Mourner’s Office Image by…
Linen Hankies by Sarah W. Bartlett Mutti, we called her. That’s the equivalent of “Mom” in German. A title we picked up from our six-month sabbatical in Munich, 1957. The name, having acquired her personality, became my own children’s way of referring to her, as well. She was not, of course, their mother. But (all too briefly) definitely their “Mutti.” My mother loved beautiful things. Her many foreign travels with Dad on business trips always produced treasures. Lengths of exquisite silk, delicate fans, ancient pottery and lacquerware from Japan. Hand carved wooden figures, authentic dirndls, original lithographs from southern Germany. …