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Mothers of the Milky Way: Poems, Stories, & Creative Nonfiction
This collection is dedicated to our mothers and to the mothers in all of us.
In this intimate collection of writings, Mothers of the Milky Way, we pay homage to the complex relationship we have with our mothers: Ma, Mommy, Mom, Mama, Mother—mothers here and mothers gone, those vanishing before our eyes and those who are mothers themselves. Here we celebrate and mourn.
In this issue we offer a glimpse into the complexities of mother love. Mothers who nurture and inspire and offer exuberance and joy and blessedness, protectors of the hearth and the children. There is also a glimpse of the mother of many shadows—mothers where boundaries blur, who disappoint, who live through us and don’t see us, who neglect and abandon, who cause us pain and even hate.
This is about older mothers and young mothers and women about to become mothers, capturing the most simple, quiet moments and the most dramatic and passionate. Some of these pieces recall a time gone by. Others are very much in the present. Some describe a reversal of roles. We hear the bold voices of daughters and mothers, mothers and sons.
One woman said, “My mother is my soul mate. She did not influence me, but rather listened to me with deep empathic eyes. A current passing back and forth. Now that she isn’t here I am bereft and adrift. She is my great love.”
There was an enormous outpouring of personal material, and our call clearly touched a creative nerve. There were some wonderful surprises: a very short play, compelling photographs that offered a tribute, even song lyrics.
The writers in this issue, many of them therapists, tell me how much they appreciate finding a home for their creative expression, a place for some of their innermost thoughts and feelings, where their creative and analytic minds can be one. It does take courage. “We contain so much,” one contributor said, “and we have long needed a venue