Marjorie Maddox On Writing Seeing Things Of all my books, the newest—Seeing Things (Wildhouse, February 2025)—proved the most difficult to write, but also one of the most important. The reason is because of you, dear reader. To better understand ourselves and others, poetry creates experiences. It helps us discover connections between strangers and uncover insight and understanding where we thought there were none. Through specific images and scenes, it says, this is my grief, joy, or hope. Is it yours as well? The poems in Seeing Things record fear, vulnerability, and joy—both from the perspective of caregivers and from…
Author: Mom Egg Review
A Literary Reflection by Ellen Meeropol “I long for books about crazy people,” begins Lydia Kann’s luminous graphic novel, Germaine’s Daughter. “Maybe crazy people who have survived the Shoah – The War. There cannot be enough said about growing up with a crazy person who survived the Shoah” (1). From the pogroms in Poland to the Resistance in France to a marginal existance back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles, this intensely personal story unspools against the enormity of international turmoil. We see a small-statured woman who survives war, raises her daughter as a single parent…
Review by Melanie McGehee Though In the Needle, A Woman is Susan Michele Coronel’s debut poetry book, ‘debut’ feels misleading. Many of the sixty-three poems here were previously published individually, in a wide variety of literary magazines. It may be more fitting to define the collection as prize-winning, as this 2024 Donna Wolf Palacio Prize winner reflects maturity and refined poetic craft. I set out to enjoy them all in this new way, presented as a whole in four distinct groupings. I experienced them as one might experience a new and growing relationship. Reading Coronel’s poems is like taking…
Review by Susan Blumberg-Kason Rebe Huntman has enjoyed a long career in dance, directing Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music out of Chicago, along with its residency dance company One World Dance Theater. Through her work in dance, she has traveled throughout Latin America, including Cuba. She is also an accomplished poet and essayist, and now she has a new book, My Mother in Havana: A Memoir in Magic & Miracle, a lyrical and beautiful story that explores death thirty years after her mother passes away. Huntman hopes to show that it’s never too late to…
Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Upcoming, new, and noted books (listed in order of date of publication). Geri Lipschultz, Grace Before the Fall, DarkWinter Press, August 2025, literary fiction (novel) Grace Before the Fall is a reminder that every girl has a little Joan of Arc in her wheelhouse. It is the time of the hostage crisis in Iran, and in New York City, it is long before the fall of the towers, just before AIDS has found itself a name, although young men are mysteriously dying, and Grace Rosinbloom is inheriting their furniture. In Geri Lipschultz’s virtual love…
In Loving Memory of Jennifer Martelli We send love to the family and friends of MER’s Poetry Co-Editor Jennifer Martelli on her passing. We are heartsick at this untimely loss. Jenn was a brilliant, unique poet, an astute editor, a brave and principled person, a gifted teacher, a loving family member and warm and dear friend. She was active in many poetry communities, including the Thursday Poets, Warren Wilson alumni, IAWA, local Salem and Massachusetts poet groups, and more. She participated in and co-ran several reading series. She was valiant in her fight against cancer, and in her political…
Aimee Suzara First Ultrasound of a Trickster What did you sound like, that first time? A flutter: the wings of a furious butterfly, thrum of a colibrí. Twice my heart’s speed, yours. A life-force undeniable. A wild new fish already swimming upstream, all swashbuckle and verve, all grit and ashé. Already my Santonilyo (1) playing in my waters: opening the way. (1) Santonilyo is the syncretized version of Santo Niño, a deity known to play in the waters and until current day, helps protect the people. The Santo Niño is seen as a significant figure in the Catholization…
Congratulations and good luck to our Best of the Net Nominees! MER Best of the Net 2026 Nominations Poetry Adrie Rose Ajanae Dawkins Jill Crammond Jennifer Garfield Maria Mazziotti Gillan Megan Merchant CNF Geula Geurtz Krista Lee Hanson Art Sarah Lightman
Jennifer Jean on Where do you live? and Mojdeh Bahar on Silence and Lost Words: A Conversation on Translation MER is pleased to present an interview with two authors on their recent books of poetry in translation: Jennifer Jean on Where do you live? and Mojdeh Bahar on Silence and Lost Words. Jean and Bahar then interviewed each other, leading to an intriguing and revealing conversation. Enjoy! JENNIFER JEAN ON WHERE DO YOU LIVE? Where Do You Live? is a bilingual, collaborative collection of questions and responses in Arabic and English, written and co-translated by Iraqi…
Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Marjorie Maddox, Seeing Things, Wildhouse Publishing, February 2025, poetry With its focus on memory, illness, and their ramifications, Seeing Things explores overlapping roles of a daughter whose mother is entering the beginning stages of dementia and of a mother whose daughter is struggling with depression. These poems also witness a woman juggling her own memories of abuse and survival who lives in a world unsettled by shifting boundaries of truth and fabrication. Ultimately, Seeing Things explores the ways that we distort or preserve memory, define or alter reality, see or disregard those around…