OF COURSE WE’RE HEARING POETRY ABOUT MOTHERS! I WON’T LIE TO YOU, THERE IS NOT A WHOLE LOT IN OUR HUMAN HISTORY OF POETRY ABOUT MOTHERS. YOU WOULD THINK, AS A TERRAN ARCHEOLOGIST FROM THE SIRENS OF TITAN THAT IN FACT WE ARE BY AND LARGE A MOTHERLESS RACE, ATHENAS POPPED OUT OF ZEUS’ HEAD, BASED ON THE ABSENCE OF POETRY ABOUT MOTHERS (AND IT USED TO BE, BY MOTHERS) AND EVEN DENIAL OF MOTHERS (“I NEVER HAD A MOTHER . . .”—E. DICKINSON). WE CAN DO WAR AND PEACE AND LIFE AND DEATH AND DADS AND INFINITE AND THE MOST SUBTLE AND BRING TO SIGNIFICANCE THE SEEMINGLY INSUBSTANTIAL, BUT MOTHERS . . . THE PEN QUAILS. THE QUILL QUIVERS. HOWEVER POETRY SLOW DOWN, YES, THERE ARE GREAT POEMS BY GREAT POETS ON MOTHERS HERE AND THERE—REALLY GREAT POEMS–, SO WE ARE IN LUCK, AND WE’LL HEAR POEMS ABOUT MOTHERS, BY MOTHERS, FOR MOTHERS, AND I’LL CONFESS MY OWN SNARKY TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS WITHOUT A CLUE WORK AS A SCHOLAR AND POET ON MOTHERS PRE-MOTHERHOOD AND THEN DURING HUMBLED MOTHERHOOD, AND SO WE GO ON THIS LABOR OF LOVE! WHICH IS, IN HUMAN EVOLUTION, EMBRYONIC, IN ITS INFANCY OF JUSTICE WE DO TO CREATION, CONCEPTION, LABOR, DELIVERY, AND THE WHOLE SHEBANG OF CONNECTION AND RESONSIBILITY FOR ANOTHER’S BEING, HOPE AND WORRY AND FEAR AND COURAGE AND BRAVERY AND SORROW. LET US GO THEN YOU AND I ON THE SUBJECT OF MOTHERS AND POETRY. A DYNAMIC “YOU AND I” OF MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT. LISTEN FOR EMILY DICKINSON, WALT WHITMAN, CHRISTINA ROSETTI, ALICIA OSTRIKER, ALLEN GINSBERG, SANDRA GILBERT, MAY SARTON, PABLO NERUDA, TONY HOAGLAND, DAWN LUNDY MARTIN, ROBERT DUNCAN, RUDYARD KIPLING, ANNE TYLER, ANNE BRADSTREET, MARK STRAND, YEATS, R.L. STEVENSON, POE, NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, AND OTHERS INCLUDING TRULY YOURS,

Professor Barbara Mossberg, The Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 540AM, SUNDAYS NOON-1 PM PST

Thank you for joining me! Please write me at bmossberg@csumb.edu and slow down–you know you move too fast! Next week, going to the woods to live deliberately, in search of morning, round the clock . . . and more on the NASA Mars haiku send-off.

For more poems about mothers and motherhood, consider the following:

Sandra Gilbert’s book on motherhood poetry and her poems “After Thanksgiving” and “Belongings”

“Sonnet to My Mother” by George Barker

“Wedding Cake,” Naomi Shihab Nye

“My Mother Would Be a Falconress” by Robert Duncan

“Kaddish” by Allen Ginsberg
”Portrait” by Louise Glück

“Clearances” by Seamus Heaney

“A Poem for My Mother,” Pablo Neruda

“Kaddish” by David Ignatow

“In Memory of My Mother” by Patrick Kavanagh

“Mother ‘o Mine” by Rudyard Kipling

“Mother, Summer, I” by Phillip Larkin

“The 90th Year” by Denise Levertov

“Parents” by William Meredith

“Medusa” by Sylvia Plath

“To My Mother” by Edgar Allan Poe

“From Childhood” by Rainer Maria Rilke

“To My Mother” by Christina Rossetti
”[Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome]” by Christina Rossetti

“For My Mother” by May Sarton

“To My Mother” by Robert Louis Stevenson

“You Just Go On and Wave That Dishrag, Honey,” Barbara Mossberg

“My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand

“Mother Doesn’t Want a Dog” by Judith Viorst

“Mama, Come Back” by Nellie Wong

Standard Podcast [ 52:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download