In this intimate afternoon of poetry and discussion, Poet & Artist Elana Bell will read from and discuss with us her new book of poetry, Mother Country. Part of the American Poets Continuum Series, the book examines the intricacies of mother–child relationships: what we inherit from our mothers, what we let go, what we hold, and what we pass on to our own children, both the visible and invisible.
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As the speaker gradually loses the mother she has always known and upon whom she has always depended to early onset Parkinson’s disease and mental illness, she asks herself: “How do you deal with the grief of losing someone who is still living?” The caregiving of a child to her parent is further compounded by anxiety and depression, as well as the pain of a miscarriage and the struggle to conceive once more. Her journey comes full circle when the speaker gives birth to a son and discovers the gap between the myths of motherhood and a far more nuanced reality.
The afternoon will open with a reading, followed by an interactive discussion with the Author. If you would like to read the book in advance, you can purchase here, though the event can still be enjoyed without having read the book.
This is a donation-based online event open to all who are interested in the arts and community. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to have their cameras on and participate in the discussion.
All registrants will receive the zoom call-in info in their confirmation email, and it will also be available to them in the "online event page." Registrants are encouraged to attend live in order to participate in the discussion, but a recording will be made available to them after the event.
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Praise for Mother Country:
“Mother Country is a breathtaking and mythical account of the complex, everyday, and porous realms of death and birth. With lyrical, imagistic intelligence and unwavering precision, Bell writes the deaths of her unborn children, her grandmother, versions of herself and of her mother. The result is a steadfast and achingly clear record of a woman's mother-route, which, among other things, traces the shape of her own mother's life and illness. She writes: ‘Through the dark I feel my mother's wild eye.’ And: ‘My mother was a dead doll I held her / hand in the land of the dead / and did not turn away...’ Gravid with loss, Bell's is a haunting, vital, songful work, and it does not turn away.”
—Aracelis Girmay, author of Kingdom Animalia and the black maria
“Mother Country provides us passage through the many portals of what it means to be, alternately, dependent upon or responsible for another’s nurture. And like the experience itself, these poems are both comforting and terrifying. Elana Bell has put to language an experience so intrinsic to its moments, I did not know how it might be brought to life in a poem. One leaves these poems changed, even healed, by their beauty and deep humanity. This book is not just for mothers. It’s for everyone.
—Cate Marvin, author of Oracle and co-founder VIDA: Women in Literary Arts
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About the Author
Elana Bell is a poet, sound practitioner, and sacred creative. Her debut poetry collection, Eyes, Stones (Louisiana State University Press 2012), was selected by Fanny Howe as winner of the 2011 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, AGNI, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Brooklyn Arts Council, the AROHO Foundation, and the Drisha Institute. She was a finalist for the inaugural Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism from Split This Rock, an award that recognizes and honors a poet who is doing innovative and transformative work at the intersection of poetry and social change. Learn more here: https://www.elanabell.com/
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