@ Literary Mama
Read the most recent pieces at Literary Mama…
CREATIVE NONFICTION
Ex Utero; A Postpartum Notebook by Cheryl Dumesnil
“There’s nothing you could have done differently,” the doc shrugged. “It’s just a fluke, a trick of nature.”
It’s a mean trick, I wanted to say.
Mother’s Milk by Kari Hilwig
It is 9:30 a.m. Winter sun streams in through the frost-marked bedroom windows. I haven’t brushed my teeth, haven’t slept since 2:00 a.m., I haven’t eaten since retching on toast the night before. I am standing on the top of our stairs swinging our crying baby in her car seat, up and down, up and down.
Clean Start by Lacy Arnett
When the phone rang I was in the bathtub — nine months pregnant with my first child, soaking swollen ankles. It was my dad on the line. Your brother didn’t pass his drug test. Can he stay with you a few days? Until he gets clean?
FICTION
Bloom by Kelly Dumar
“Let’s love, baby . . . ,” Marvin sings – one of Josh’s favorites. He’s home already? She had planned to help him pick up his tux after he got home from school. Was he getting ready for his prom without her?
POETRY
Weaned by Donna Levine Gershon
She drinks for the last time
from me
the morning my mother dies.
Weaning: God by Wendy Wisner
It ends as it began:
one pale yellow drop
from my left breast,
the right breast dry.
Weaning: Hurricane by Wendy Wisner
I dreamt that onions
appeared in my hands, the ones I’d forgotten
at the grocery store…
Weaning: Burial by Wendy Wisner
The night we buried my uncle was the first night
my son fell asleep without nursing. He didn’t even ask.
New Mother Blues by Adrienne Hernandez
because her daughter refuses to nurse
the new mother’s milk drips like tears
she paces the worn linoleum floor
daughter in diapers straddles her hip
Pacifier Ode by Sandra L. Faulkner
next to the shiny
cans priced with promise
for smart growth,
superpowered limbs,
beside the temperature
sensitive spoons, sippy cups
bibs with cartoon faces–
things you never thought to need–
PROFILES
A Conversation with Sarah Gilbert by Carol Smallwood
Part of Literary Mama’s series of interviews with editors and publishers of women-focused journals and books. Sarah Gilbert is editor-in-chief of Stealing Time, a new literary magazine for parents.
LITERARY REFLECTIONS
The New Yorker for Mothers by Becki Melchione
I knew I had officially become a parent when my subscription to The New Yorker disappeared and Brain, Child took its place.
Essential Reading: Generations by Libby Maxey
Every genre finds inspiration in the gaps between generations, and this month, our editors are inspired by generational stories from the fictional to the anthropological to the theatrical.
REVIEWS
Book Bites: New Books from Seal Press by Katherine J. Barrett
A brief look at new books from one of Literary Mama’s favorite publishers, Seal Press.