Pandemic Parenting: An MER VOX folio Curated by J.L. Scott Parenting is always a challenge, even in the best of circumstances. Parenting during a pandemic, when fears for safety are high and opportunities for distraction and activity are limited, is especially challenging. Sometimes, though, the challenges we face end up shedding light on some aspect of ourselves, our lives, our children and yes, even our parenting, that ends making things better. The following works come from mothers covering the gamut of challenges, from the heart wrenching to the heart warming, during this time of Pandemic Parenting. Featured: Jane Yolen Susan McGee…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Cammy Thomas Patrice Boyer Claeys grew up in Pennsylvania, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Manchester, U.K. Her first book of poems, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering was followed a year later by The Machinery of Grace in 2020, both from Kelsay Books. She has been nominated twice for Best of the Net. This is a gorgeous book, made entirely of lines taken from other poems, but absolutely clear in its unified voice. I can’t see how she did it! The book is in three sections, the first about the death of the speaker’s mother, the second a…
Inside Out: Poems on Writing And Reading Poems by Marjorie Maddox Review by Tasslyn Magnusson How’s your COVID-19 writing going? Mine has been less than productive. Between Zoom meetings, elections, navigating online therapy and kid stuff, my mind feels as if its in a hundred places all at the same time. And those moments of silence I had reserved for my poems, well I have no idea where they went. Inside Out: Poems on Writing And Reading Poems by Marjorie Maddox came at the perfect time for my practice. While it is geared for younger readers, nobody ever should miss an…
MER VOX Quarterly – Fall 2020 Welcome to MER VOX, Fall Edition! Range of Motherhood is a literary folio curated by J.L. Scott amplifying diverse mother’s voices. We have a Labor Day poem by Margo Berdeshevsky, Rage Hezekiah’s inspiring essay and poems influenced by the writings of Sandra Cisneros, part of our new Legacy series curated by Ana C.H. Silva. M.A.M.A., our ongoing collaboration with Museum of Motherhood and ProCreate Project, features poems by Margie Shaheed and art by Maria Linares investigating injustice and prejudice. We hope you enjoy the issue. We wish you health, safety, and peace, and urge…
Range of Motherhood An MER VOX folio curated by J.L. Scott The experience of motherhood is so wide and varied that there is no way that a single volume of anything could hope to represent it all. The works in this folio, though, help to shine a light on those voices that are sometimes left out of the conversation. Hopefully they help to better expose the beautifully wide range of motherhood. ~J.L. Scott Featured writers: Naomi J. Williams Sophie Rhem Pooja Ugrani Meghan Trask Smith Onita Morgan Edwards Eloísa Pérez-Lozano Janet Garber Jennifer L. Freed Nicole Hospital-Medina …
Naomi J. Williams No Doors When they had been stuck indoors for a very long time, the children asked if they could play outside, just for a little while, and the mother relented because she wanted to be alone for a few minutes of her life. But the children hollered, Mama, we have no doors to get out! And the mother, who’d just laid herself down on the sofa, sat right up and said, That’s true! We forgot to put in the doors! And it was also true, she thought, what they said about “out of the mouths of babes.”…
Sophie Rhem Am I A Mother I Am 19 days. 456 hours. 27,360 minutes. 1,641,600 seconds. None of them are simple numbers, easily divisible and sorted into categories. They are complex. Confusing. Difficult for my muddled brain to make sense of. None of them seem like enough. None of them can quantify moments of pure joy or relay the devastation of losing a child. She got so excited by black and white shapes: her little legs kicking, arms flailing, eyes wide. Sometimes she’d shout at a complex pattern, enthralled by the contrast. I’ve watched the video of her doing…
Pooja Ugrani Thud! A familiar sound drops like a boulder in my belly a second before I open the door. The skull that hit the floor, now bobs up to greet me, to my relief. Guilt boils over. I let out an angry yowl, She joins in, confused I hug her, kneeling on the floor amidst the debris of broken embankments—pillows and bolsters mis-navigated in her flight from the bed. Fear drives shame away. For a while after, I keep the bathroom door open as vigil, postponing worldly lessons to a later date. Pooja Ugrani is as an architect…
Meghan Trask Smith First Fever The fosterling burning in this bed calls out for her mother in a fever dream, a woman who is not me. Her mother is handing her unicorn earrings when I wake her for Advil. There is no touching moment when I force the medicine into her mouth. On the car ride to the doctor’s the next morning, the fosterling specifies that the dream earrings were real, not clippies. Even though the nurse wears bright pink scrubs and kindly asks, I have no idea what her medical history is. I struggle to remember her birthday.…
Onita Morgan Edwards Clean House I ignored my husband’s wishes by taking in foster children after he died. I wanted to save the world, and while my life wasn’t always rosy, I was obviously in better shape than some parents. Our children had never been in foster care. We were responsible parents. That’s what I told myself as I cast judgement on parents who chose drugs or alcohol or mates over the needs of their children. I’d suck my teeth and turn up my nose at the thought of their selfishness. Awful humans who’d brought children into the world…