By Ana C.H. Silva One of my poetry mothers, Sharon Dolin, once gently challenged me, “Who are you reading right now?” I appreciated what she was really saying: to be a good writer, you need to be a great reader. I stuttered at first, but then, from my heart, the list began; the poems that made me feel less alone, the collections that held onto the mystery but affirmed the scraps of my understanding of the world. The ones that made me catch my breath, or breath more easily. Every poet has a legacy she draws from, essential and…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Lara Lillibridge “This book is for all who have touched this and all who suffer in silent trauma and grief either directly or indirectly. Therefore, this book is for all of us.” (5) Melissa Valentine was born in Oakland, California in 1984 to a white father and black mother. One of six children, they lived “on the edge of prosperity and desolation.” (8) Closest in age to her brother, Junior, Melissa was his playmate and accomplice, growing up in his shadow as they pleaded with each other over and over to “do better.” Right after getting out…
Review by Ana C.H. Silva The opening epigraph of Rocked by the Waters, Poems of Motherhood, edited by Margaret Hasse and Athena Kildegaard, offers this collection “to everyone rocked by the waters.” Immediately I thought of my post-partum doula who reassured me, in my first week, that I was doing well “surrendering to the wave.” While I white-knuckled two infants at my breasts, panic in my eyes, she nodded,“You’re letting it all wash over you.” I was skeptical of the compliment at the time, but years later, I’m sure of it. As the 136 poems in this collection…
Review by Deborah Bacharach Dayna Patterson’s first full length poetry collection If Mother Braids a Waterfall is chockfull of Mormons. Their photos grace not just the cover but intersperse with and frame the poems throughout the book. (And reflecting some of the themes, the polygamist great-grandfather stands alone, the sister wives all together.) And it is chockfull of post-Mormons, those who choose to leave the church, but, as the poems explore, will always have it as part of their identity. The first poem, “The Mormons are Coming” combines that ominous refrain with all the benign and in fact…
Asking the Form / After Words by Hilary Sallick A small regret is that I didn’t include the dates of publication along with the acknowledgments of those journals that published some of the poems in Asking the Form. Usually the date of publication is not part of the acknowledgment; however, when a journal has been dead or dormant for decades, then including a date would make sense. Dates give context. In the case of my book, they would reveal that some of these poems were written many years ago. As I put the book together, the idea of…
Review by Anna Limontas-Salisbury When nurses around the world began to make urgent pleas for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the fight against Covid-19, it was as though no one knew that nursing could be dangerous. Why become a nurse? Nurse Practitioner and poet Cortney Davis answers these questions in her book of sonnets and prose, Taking Care of Time. Nursing is a profession that calls for physical contact of care and comfort, revive and sometimes prepare for release of the body. “Selling Kisses at the Door” is a poem steeped the magic of nursing. The narrator ending her…
Poet Duet: A Mother and Daughter Poetry Manuscript Review by Mindy Kronenberg In a previous review of Carolyn Clark’s New Found Land, I stated that the collection read as “…an epic of life’s discoveries and detours, the shared excursions of a fully aware woman.” How lovely to be invited, once again, into the poet’s realm of profound moments, this time accompanied by her mother’s own perspective and distinctive voice. Poet Duet begins with a cluster of Clark’s mother’s poems, and then includes her own, intertwining and alternating according to shared mood or theme. It makes for a compelling and…
Review by Julia Lisella Some Glad Morning is Barbara Crooker’s ninth collection of poems. Since her debut collection, Radiance, which won the 2005 Word Press First Book Award, Crooker’s work has insisted on the lyrical promise of the everyday and the domestic to renew our spirits. At the same time, her work often gently raises the stakes of those concerns. That’s most true in this aptly named new collection that recalls the old gospel song, “Some glad morning / I’ll fly away.” But in the meantime, the poet is very much here with us, contending with all that makes…
Review by Christine Salvatore Reading a poem from Katherine Nuernberger’s new collection is like listening to a friend tell a fascinating story, taking few breaths while she lets one inevitable detail bleed into the next; to hang on, lean in, listen closely, until your own breath is finally taken away by the startling resolution. In the first poem Nuernberger takes us from the photography of Diane Arbus to an incident where her neighbor fell but was unharmed to Plato to Sontag and back to the neighbor. We are never lost because, of course, it makes perfect sense. As Nuernberger…
Hitchcock Blonde: A Cinematic Memoir by Sharon Dolin Review by Kelly Bargabos Reading Sharon Dolin’s memoir, Hitchcock Blonde, is like sitting in a theater next to the author as she watches a movie reel of her own life, and uses Alfred Hitchcock films to make sense of her memories. The author herself tells us she finds it easier to remember things by not thinking about them directly, and therefore the Hitchcock movies help her process the scenes that span her life including the complicated relationships, thoughts, and feelings carried within the episodes that she shares. Each chapter is anchored…