Review by Lisa C. Taylor What initially struck me about Rise Wildly by Tina Kelley was the imaginative titles of her poems. Titling poems is an art form, and Tina Kelley does it well. Who wouldn’t want to read a poem called “I’m Having the Death I’d Always Hoped For” or “Help. My Mother is Dead. I Feel Light”. The collection is divided into five sections with distinct thematic differences, yet all of the poems are anchored in singular moments of reverence and horror, tempered by the larger mystery of why we are here. The launch into the collection includes…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In Shakira Croce’s debut poetry chapbook, Leave It Raw, there is an awareness of the inevitable cyclical journey of life. Though the poems are organized in a linear manner, unfolding from youth to motherhood, there is an underlying cognizance that life, no matter where it begins and ends, is always an odyssey of circularity. Interlaced with this circularity is a profound exploration of the definition of home. From her childhood in rural Georgia to the bustling and near-overwhelming urbanity of New York City of her adulthood, Croce guides the reader through mesmerizing memories and encounters…
Review by Lara Lillibridge Forget Russia is a novel told in two perspectives, that of Anna, a twenty-two-year-old American student, and her grandmother, Sarah, who is living in Russia right before the Russian revolution. Anna’s story is told in first person, and we follow Sarah from a third person point of view. Each section is separated by a full page with the chapter title, followed by either a poem if it’s Anna’s chapter, or a quote from a famous Russian if it is Sarah’s chapter. In this way, each voice is distinct and the reader is never confused by…
Review by Sherre Vernon Jen Stewart Fueston is the author of two chapbooks, Latch (2019) and Visitations (2015), and of the full-length collection considered here: Madonna, Complex (2020). Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. Her work has appeared widely, in such publications as AGNI, Spoon River Poetry Review, Ruminate, MER and The Christian Century. Fueston is the mother of two young sons and has taught writing internationally. In the audacity of its title, Madonna, Complex asks that we come equipped for exegesis. Before we read her first line of poetry,…
Memories of Mother Inspiration or irritation, role model to be followed or not, our mothers imprint their lives upon our own. These works by MER writers remember and reveal mothers in fiction, poetry, and creative prose. Featured: Tsaurah Litzky – The Sweet Potato Plant – Prose D.O. Moore – Mother’s Day Visitor – Poetry Jennifer Dickinson – No One’s Darling – Fiction Golda Solomon – She Did the Best She Could – Prose Catharine Clark-Sayles – Yahrzeit Moon – Poetry Vivian Montgomery – Her Study, Her Story – Prose Art by Rebecca Spilecki, “A Common Thread” Rebecca Spilecki is…
Vivian Montgomery Her Study, Her Story My mother kept the door to her study open at all times. This is how we knew her work was meant to be interrupted, a sideline to us, a thing she did when there wasn’t something being asked of her. The room was right there on the second floor, at the top of the stairs, the obvious place for an aimless child to go straight into when she wasn’t sure what had brought her upstairs in the first place. My father’s “studio” was in the attic, discouraging in its mustiness and quiet. And of…
D.O. Moore Mother’s Day Visitor My hours hover in abeyance—not the hummingbird suspended in a C before my window’s trumpet-flower feeder. Instead your pause, assessing me. You, turquoise purse and heels, waiting for me to sleep or at least consent to lemon Jell-O when I’d prefer ice cream, to this Home when that spa in Gibraltar would do better. Even one of those tin-wall motels on Route 3. On Tupper Lake in George’s sloop you were just six but already too refined to skinny dip. And me? Within the water’s glistening I laughed and splashed you, prim on the deck…
Golda Solomon She Did the Best She Could Friday nights at dusk she lit the Sabbath candles. Her ritual: hold a lit wooden match to the bottom of each tapered candle, melting the wax so the candle stood on its own in the silver plated candlestick, and then placed on the rickety silver plated tray. The flames had their own lives making shadows on the walls. She covered her head with a white cloth napkin, began the rocking gesture back and forth, saying blessings in Yiddish. She didn’t teach me the prayers. Outsider to my own religion, I watched from the edge of the foyer. She wept for…
Catharine Clark-Sayles Yahrzeit Moon Full moon at 3 AM, bright and round, ducking through fast-moving cloud, wind wuthers through the chimney, moans across the downspouts, rattles trees, the house a creaky ship in storm-frothed seas, across the valley – scattered lights: porch lights, streetlights, windows, a car turns up a twisted drive. Neil posts it is his mother’s yahrzeit. He asks for prayers. Minyans are uncertain in a time of viral plague, as we huddle away from smiles and touch, the comforts ritual brings. My mother died three years ago, I add a prayer for her, I can’t manage Hebrew…
Jennifer Dickinson No One’s Darling Etta puts on her pink dress with the slit up the skirt. Lipstick. Powder. Mascara. Rhinestone earrings. Her fur coat. If she’s going to have an audience, she has to look her best. The blonde is on duty. Etta can never remember her name. Blondie whistles. “Etta darlin’ why you so dressed up?” Fuck her. Etta’s eighty-five. No one’s darling anymore. “You aren’t gonna wander off on us like last time, are you,” Blondie says. “Remember?” Etta can’t. She can’t remember shit anymore. But she doesn’t want Blondie to know that. She already hears them…