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Our Mothers, Our Selves Writers and Poets Celebrating Motherhood

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Edited by Karen J. Donnelly and J. B. Bernstein

ISBN: 0-89789-445-6

ISBN-13: 978-0-89789-445-6

DOI:

280 pages, photographs

Bergin & Garvey Trade

Publication: 4/30/1996

List Price: $26.95

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Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Reviews:

Donnelly and Bernstein...have collected essays, short fiction, and poems about motherhood, most by contemporary writers, including themselves. Many of the contributors to their 'womb-book' are well known, e.g. Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Bly...[W]ill interest the general reader.
—
Library Journal
The essays, photographs, fiction, and poetry included in this collection empower mothers by allowing women to share their story without interruption or censure.
—The Mother is Me

Description: Finally, we have an inclusive collection that brings motherhood into the fold of feminism. As we accede to our universal origins in the mother, we witness the infinite variety of experiences awarded the offspring. Spectrums of gender, race, age, religion, class, and nation give voice in Donnelly and Bernstein's anthology as more than 80 writers contribute poetry, essays, memoirs, and short fiction. Some of the artists are well-known, including Maya Angelou, Galway Kinnell, Marge Piercy, Margaret Atwood, and Robert Bly, while others are less known. All attest to the experience of motherhood as primal. Writing as mothers, as children to their mothers, and as close observers, women and men create selections that fall into three "trimesters" of involvement: the experiences of going beyond the self, beyond reflection, and, finally, beyond the whole. The many shades of emotional experience, from ecstasy to horror and all points in between, are portrayed in words and photographs. As images take shape, nightmares are relived, emotions flow abundantly, and details come into focus as the cathartic effect of the writing builds. Painting motherhood as much more than just a pretty picture, the editors' purpose is clearly to bring us all together under a multi-faceted umbrella of empathy and to unite us in the diversity of the experience of motherhood.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Beyond Self
The Moment the Two Worlds Meet by Sharon Olds
from A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks
How to Live by Meryl Shader
Miscarriage by Rawdon Tomlinson
With Child by Mary Connor Ralph
Lines For One As Yet Unnamed by Harry Brody
Fist First by C. D. Runyon
The Bearing Woman by Judith A. Downey
Infant Burial Room, Wupatki by Felicia Mitchell
Even after death, I will not forget how a newborn huffs and puffs when sitting slumped over by Hilda Downer
Not a Trace by Jan Frazier
Cambodia by Alicia Ostriker
Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
Stumbling into Motherhood: A Few Words About Bonding & Mother-Women by T. J. Banks
Ironing by Judith Minty
On the Inside by Eliza Monroe
After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed by Rita Dove
Crack in the World by Anne Waldman
What to Tell the Kids by Linda Vernon
But How? by Karen J. Donnelly
Yes, It is Possible to Love a Child Who Doesn't Have Your Eyes by Esther Cohen
Motherless by Carol Corda
Brothers and Sons by Gus Pelletier
Loving Across State Lines by Meg Mott
The Glass Half Empty by Anna Quindlen
Awaiting the Arrival of the Witch by Deborah Shouse
Ghost Child by Joanne Lewis Sears
Learning the Firebird Suite by Nancy B. Miller
That's My Girl by Marael Johnson
The Blessing by Carolyn Kizer
Cornucopia by Frank Miller, Photographer
Beyond Reflection
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (excerpt) by Maya Angelou
Reasons... by Sue Walker
The Woman Warrior (excerpt) by Maxine Hong Kingston
Nursing the Adopted Child: A Different Pace of Bonding by Lisa Gayle
Sitting With My Mother and Father by Robert Bly
Bending Over Roses at Twilight by Franz Douskey
Mercy Killing by Margaret Fulton
Women and Other Mothers by Sarah Morgan
Spring of '42 by Peter Desy
The Body Market by Elizabeth Cohen
Foreword from The Measure of Our Success by Jonah Martin Edelman
Mother's Voice by Robert Creeley
Autumn Roses by Elizabeth Engstrom
Passing Away by Dusty Sklar
Breast Fed by Larry Schug
The Annuity by Marge Piercy
What She Left Me by Judy Doenges
Rubberband Dances by Delisa Heiman
Shooters by Leo Connellan
Writing My Mother's Life by Elayne Clift
Feminism, Art, and My Mother Sylvia by Andrea Dworkin
Going Deeper into the Album by Larry Rubin
On Learning of the Death of My Great-Grandmother in Childbirth at Age 18 by Em Case (Droppo)
Grandmother by Ruth Harriet Jacobs
Making the Wine by Marisa Labozzetta
Dead Baby Speaks by Toi Derricotte
50 Mothers of Renowned Wolf by Evelyn Roehl
Beautiful Bellies by Daryn Stier, Photographer
Beyond the Whole
Mother and Daughter, A Dynamic Duo Indeed by Jackie Fitzpatrick
Heat by Jameson Currier
Two Poems by Tom Baer
The Scorpion Wore Pink Shoes by Janice Levy
Mommy Wars by Kim Hirsh
Real Enough by Alison McGhee
The Child Has Seen the Wind by John Grey
Tito Fuentes, Topps #177, 1967 by Frank Van Zant
Life Ain't Never Settled by LaVonne Dressinia McIver
Conception by Galway Kinnell
Giving Birth by Margaret Atwood
Mother's Milk: A Dairy Tale by Gayle Brandeis
The Woman With the Wild-Grown Hair Keeps Her Vigil by Nita Penfold
Like Her Uterus Ripped Out by Lonna Lisa Williams
The Fault by Sondra Zeidenstein
Small Things by Sarah Willis
The Christmas Ritual by Susan Clayton-Goldner
from 7 Folk Songs with Refrains by Vainis Alexsa
Black Bear Eating Salmon by George Keithley
Child Has No Say by Ellen Goodman
After-Shock by J. B. Bernstein
Breast Feeding by Neil Carpathios
The Last Wild Horses in Tennessee by Vivien Shipley
The Envelope by Maxine Kumin

LC Card Number: 95-36903

LCC Class: HQ759

Dewey Class: 306


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