Review by Barbara Lawhorn Two and a half years ago, I found myself questioning my identity in the face of a marital separation. Larger than the question of who I was beyond being a wife, was the deeper interrogation of who I was when my children were gone. Since their births, the contours of my life have been shaped and sanded by their astounding existence. I knew I was a writer, and a teacher, but shared custody initially left me reeling in a house too quiet and too empty. Mothers Without Their Children, edited by Charlotte Beyer and Andrea Lee…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Happy Mother’s Day! On Mother’s Day, MER celebrates all aspects of “mother”–the noun (“a mother’) but also the verb (“to mother”), and, for that matter, adjective and adverb. Wishing all who mother in any way a beautiful day! French artist Camille Aubry’s astute graphic art depicts the dawn of the mothering experience. Joetta Maue’s art references stages of motherhood and mothers’ work. Laura Foley’s poem evokes the joy of grand-mothering. Laura Foley – Poetry Camille Aubry – A Journey to Motherhood Joetta Maue – Art
Camille Aubry – A Journey to Motherhood Artist’s Statement I am a French illustrator and cartoonist based in Bristol, UK. I explore the subject of motherhood in my artwork, and more particularly through my comic book A Journey to Motherhood. The project was this year long listed for the Laydeez Do Comics Prize. As a side project to this long form graphic novel, my self-published book of cartoons Toddler Moments was selected as part of the April line-up for the Laydeez do Comics event where I was invited to present the project to the public. The book was recently reviewed…
Joetta Maue Artist Statement As an artist I have utilized my daily life as muse; my work inevitably reflects this, therefore, as I became a mother my work explored and continues to explore this complex relationship and landscape. Through motherhood I began to explore the psychological landscape of the domestic space through various media. Zooming in, slowing down, creating labor in the small seemingly insignificant moments is an attempt to bring awareness and attention to the glimpses, touches, and objects that create our daily experience. Through my labor intensive drawings. embroideries and the witness of my camera I invite the…
Laura Foley Camden, Maine The winter loons find harbor here, as do I, my child’s child walking slowly with me down the street, her tiny hand like an anchor in mine. She bids hello to water, to sunlight on the water, to the river beneath the little bridge, to the strange man passing— who stops and waves, basking in her favor. No one racing, this quiet Sunday morning— except time’s thoroughbred waters, galloping to the sea. Laura Foley’s seventh collection of poetry, Why I Never Finished My Dissertation, is due out in September 2019. Her work has…
Welcome to Mom Egg Review’s seventeenth annual issue. We are proud to publish fine literary work centering on diverse experiences of mothers, mothering, and motherhood. This has been a complicated year in a series of complicated years. Countries and factions seem increasingly at odds. Hate has flaunted its ugly face around the globe, having appeared to have been countenanced. Our physical environment teeters and we disagree about the dire nature of this and what to do about it. Injustice and inequality reveal their tenacity daily. And through it all, mothers work, nurture families, children, partners, elders, and friends, and do…
Art by Tereza Buskova – ‘Clipping the Church’ Words by Caitlin Grace McDonnell – ‘Measure of Grace” Tereza Buskova – Clipping the Church In many cultures, even today, new mothers and their infants are subject to a period of physical seclusion or confinement from the rest of the world. During this time, the support of relatives and the local community plays a vital role in sustaining the family by caring for the older children, providing food and completing chores typically carried out by the mother herself. It is hard to imagine now that things were not so different for…
house ———— hold “House/hold” is part of a research project on women’s position in the western society. It examines the evolution of gender equality in various subjects.“House/ hold” investigates the housework gap and its consequences while it provides an ironical solution for women: a 30 minute yoga session combined with domestic chores. The session transforms the house into a space for meditation using domestic objects as its basic elements. Housework is being transformed into illumination: the repetitive act of house making becomes not just a physical but also a mental and spiritual act where women and their household objects…
Reviewed by Carole Mertz A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Manchester, and a nominee for Best of the Net, Patrice Boyer Claeys is also the recipient of a Certificate in Poetry from the Writer’s Studio of the U. Of Chicago. Her beautiful poetry collection speaks to me as an elegiac emblem of the poet’s love for her child. It is admirable in the way it conveys the pain and care involved in mothering a disturbed child, and perhaps even more admirable in its use of a rather difficult poetic technique: the cento poem. Some poems…
Reviewed by Michelle Wilbert While reading Laura Grace Weldon’s latest collection of poetry, Blackbird, I found myself anchored to continuity of time, family, place, and human experience woven into pieces glowing with vivid, knowable imagery of the quotidian mysteries that infuse every life. Written in the genre of naturalistic, free form poetry, this is thoughtful, careful work worthy of respect and careful reading. Crafted with nuance and wit, the poems are bracingly honest, redolent with subtle shifts in light and mood, with perception that rings true to experience. There is nothing static in these poems–they move with a dynamism that…