Review by Tasslyn Magnusson When I asked to review this collection, I’ll admit, I’d forgotten exactly what the phrase, “let X equal something” meant, but I knew it was math. I’ve heard of math-based poetry – could this be it? I’ve heard math inclined friends say that proofs were like poetry – again, is the book to finally make that connection for me? A good friend wrote a verse novel for middle schoolers that used coding to structure her poems. Much to my surprise – and excitement, Let X = X is none of these things. Cleveland Wall’s collection…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Michelle Wilbert A number of years ago, I read a book by noted Quaker author Parker Palmer entitled Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. In it, the following seminal quote: “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.” As I was reading this intelligently probing book of poetry, Asking the Form…
Mom Egg Review Proudly Presents Voices from Home A Virtual Reading from MER 18 – HOME Issue Mom Egg Review celebrates its HOME issue with a virtual reading by contributing writers and poets. When the theme for this year’s issue was set as “Home,” no one had an inkling of how timely the theme would be! But “home’ has always had multiple connotations and meanings— Is a home a place, a feeling, a center, a community? A battleground or refuge? Home land. Home base. Unhoused. Also home neighborhood, others’ homes, away from home. The home you grew up in…
Marjorie Tesser, Jennifer Martelli and Cindy Veach Mom Egg Review Editors welcome you to a very special reading of work from MER 18 – HOME
Lan Tran Sewn From Mom Egg Review 18 – HOME Lan Tran’s writing has previously been anthologized in A New Literary History of America (Harvard University Press, 2009) and Waking Up American (Seal Press, 2005). Lan has also also authored three off-Broadway solo-plays and is the recipient of a PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
Ingrid Wendt Leaving the House From Mom Egg Review 18 – HOME Ingrid Wendt, Leaving the House from Ingrid Wendt on Vimeo. Ingrid Wendt (Eugene, Oregon) and her late husband, writer Ralph Salisbury, once rescued an old house from demolition, moved it across town. and worked on it for many years. Her first book, Moving the House, was published by BOA Editions. Co-editor of In Her Own Image: Women Working in the Arts (The Feminist Press), Wendt’s fifth and most recent book of poems is Evensong. New poems are forthcoming in POETRY and Cold Mountain Review. www.ingridwendt.com.
Pramila Venkateswaran History of My Suitcase From Mom Egg Review 18 – HOME Pramila Venkateswaran, poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island (2013-15) and co-director of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival, is the author of Thirtha (Yuganta Press, 2002) Behind Dark Waters (Plain View Press, 2008), Draw Me Inmost (Stockport Flats, 2009), Trace (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Thirteen Days to Let Go (Aldrich Press, 2015), Slow Ripening (Local Gems, 2016), and The Singer of Alleppey (Shanti Arts, 2018). She has performed the poetry internationally, including at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and the Festival Internacional De…
Cynthia White Cosmogenesis From Mom Egg Review 18 – HOME https://soundcloud.com/themomegg/cynthia-white-reads-cosmogenesis Cynthia White’s poems have appeared in Narrative, New Letters, ZYZZYVA, Poet Lore and Catamaran among others. She’s been a finalist for both New Letter’s Patricia Cleary Miller Prize and Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize and was the winner of the 2018 Julia Darling Memorial Prize for Poetry from Kallisto Gaia Press. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Jo Pitkin On “Village: Cinnamon Rice” From Mom Egg Review 18 – HOME As a freelance educational writer, I was deeply affected by the 2008 recession. To offset my anxiety about earning a living, I began writing poems about my experiences during the downturn. I asked my mother about her own recollections of the Great Depression, and her childhood memory about enjoying the novelty of cinnamon rice suppers inspired “Village: Cinnamon Rice.” This poem celebrates my grandmother’s resilience and ingenuity and the ways women sustain those they love. Jo Pitkin is the author of a chapbook and four…
On “In the Templo de la Compañía de Jesús in Oaxaca, Mexico” Lisa Lopez Smith From Mom Egg Review 18 – HOME Writing this essay helped me process my meeting with this young father and his infant daughter. We chatted for quite awhile, and I could have interjected with my opinions and my stories about working in a migrant comedor or walking in the desert or kids in cages. But what about giving dignity to his situation which I would never comprehend entirely? What about just listening to his story? I’m an immigrant too and the reasons we leave our…