Mamas are reading

Today I'm hosting the Toronto leg of the blog book tour for Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. Editors Andi Buchanan and Amy Hudock have pulled together a "best of" collection of essays, poems and stories from Literary Mama.

For those unfamiliar with the site, Literary Mama is an online literary magazine, which features writing by mother writers about the complexities and many faces of motherhood,. . . a home for beautiful poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction that may be too long, too complex, too ambiguous, too deep, too raw, too irreverent, too ironic, and too body conscious for other publications."

I first came into contact with Literary Mama when I introduced myself to Andi at the 2004 Association for Research on Mothering Conference in Toronto. I had read Andi's Mother Shock right after Baby Girl was born and her writing had so moved me that I wanted to meet her in person. Andi introduced me to Amy Hudock, her co-editor at Literary Mama. Eventually I started to do a little copyediting for them and, more recently, took on a more active role as one of their resident bloggers.

One of the goals of Literary Mama is to publish and catalogue the work of mother writers -- to take the work of mother writers seriously in a world which often seems quick to dismiss them. (When Tom Perrotta writes about the suburban parenting experience, it's considered literature; when a mother writes about the same subject, it's deemed a 'momoir' and housed in the parenting section of the bookstore. I myself had an encounter with a literary agent who had read my blog and thought I ought to write a 'funny little book' about mothering -- one that would sell in hospital gift shops, that a mother-in-law might buy for her her daughter-in-law to celebrate the birth of a grandchild. A book with a pretty cover and short on content -- a book that might never actually be read. Right.)

The anthology is smart and funny and surprising and heartbreaking.

Joanne Hartman, for example, paints an all too familar scene in her essay Evolution of a Muse:

The writing life and the mothering life are so similar: Both are unpredictable, isolating, and they pay poorly. With both, I try to follow gut instincts, I constantly revise ideas and expectations, and, with limited opportunity for feedback from my peers -- someone to say, "Hey, that was well done!" -- I have to be creative and confident. After all, these are two professions where critics abound.

"You're a bad mommy," my daughter tells me when I explain that pudding is not a choice for breakfast. And then I go write. My husband is watching our daughter; it's the only time I'll have. But my own critic tells me the writing isn't flowing; it's clogged, backed up. I'm way out of practice but I try to write anyway.

My daughter is screaming that she wants me, not her daddy anymore. Breakfast time has passed, though she still hasn't eaten, and I'm tempted to give in to chocolate pudding (there is protein in the milk, right?) Laundry is piled as high as our dog. We're out of OJ and low on milk. I don't have the time or energy to be a writer. What made me think I did?"

garrie keyman writes charmingly about raising a son in her poem "Son of a Bitch":

they never told me

to stop pushing

so by fourteen

he was completely

out of sight

Heidi ("Confessions of a Naughty Mommy") Raykeil's Johnny, about the death of her firstborn son, is one of the most moving pieces I've read in a long time:

My eyes shifted to the hospital ID bracelet on my wrist, the one that proved we belonged to someone, that let us visit whenever we wanted. All the writing had worn off except the very clear outline of the word "Mother." I looked across at my husband pondering his own wristband, and I knew he was trying to make sense of exactly the same thing. Just what the hell did that word mean now?

I'm a huge fan of the work that Literary Mama is doing. It is important not only for the mother-writer community but for mothers in general. It is important that we record our experiences. So that we do not let advertisers dictate what we ought to look like, how we ought to spend our time and how we ought to feel. So that we do not feel so alone when we find ourselves feeling "unmotherly" thoughts like anger or sadness or failure. So that each generation does not have to feel like mothering pioneers, going alone into uncharted terrritory. And so that our daughters will have a body of literature from which to derive comfort if the days and nights prove long.

Comments

[garrie keyman]

I just wanted to say I was touched to have had my poem mentioned in your blog. Having my work included in an anthology intended as "the best" of LiteraryMama was meaningful to me, especially when I received my contributor's copy and was immediately impressed by the quality and depth of the writing. "Son of a Bitch" was a poem written in a moment of personal motherly despair, yet works like those published in Literary Mama's Readings For the Maternally Inclined have reinforced my knowledge that the experiences of motherhood -- both good and bad -- are truly universal. I have had people literally fall out of their chair laughing at "Son of a Bitch." They thought it hilarious. Of course, it wasn't written in that light, and so I was pleased (and perhaps a little vindicated) when Andi understood the work.

Somethings, perhaps, only a mother can understand.

[Dianne Scott]

I'm a great fan of Literary Mama too--where I read your blog. And you are so right...there are few venues that want to examine, discuss and publish writing about the complex and diverse experiences of motherhood (I know because I'm sending stuff to newspapers and magazines with very little response).I'm a huge fan of motherhood writing that is edgy and defiant and inappropriate...and honest. I wish there was more of it out there in the mainstream