First Poetry Reading by Fran Markover (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

First Poetry Reading
by Fran Markover

Mom wears her sparkly red dancing shoes, not the gray Velcro
therapeutics she keeps bedside. At 80 years old, she presents

her poems in the Rec Room at Long View Assisted Living.
She’s brought soft cookies for the residents with dentures.

Neighbors from Wing B circle the table so she’s not nervous.
Delores, next to her, offers a kiss on the cheek. Mom begins.

She dedicates a poem to Harold, whose recent 91st birthday
she celebrates with an added last line: “Harold, coffee cake

for you to forget what aches.“ The audience applauds, pats
Harold on the back. She continues with Butterflies in the Garden.

“Orange and black butterflies are beautiful, my life is so full.”
One of the residents interrupts, declares, “Oh, yes,

they’re awfully pretty.“ Mom nods, the audience ahhing
as if they can picture the Painted Ladies and Mourning Cloaks

who hover outside over the seniors’ flower garden.
And for half an hour, friends attend to rhyme and Hallmark

sentiments. No one wants my mother’s reading to end—
stanzas embroidered by gossip, complaints of sore knees,

coughs, crunches of oatmeal cookies. And when the nurse
signals time for the activities room to clear for evening’s

Coloring Group, mom thanks her listeners, pink rose in hand
from an admirer plucking it from the nursing home vase.

Photo by Evgeniya Timlyashina. 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My poetry is a daily practice and has been for a few decades. “First Poetry Reading” was written a few years before my mother passed away in 2019. She was so proud to be called a poet. And I wanted to capture the joys of mom’s triumphant reading.

PHOTO: The author’s mother, Clare Markover (2015).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fran Markover lives in Ithaca, New York. She is a retired psychotherapist and addictions counselor whose poems have appeared in many journals. Her chapbook, History’s Trail, was published by Finishing Line Press, and her book, Grandfather’s Mandolin (Passager Press), was a finalist for the Henry Morgenthau III First Book Poetry Prize. Recognitions include nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, as well as poetry awards—Anna Davidson Rosenberg, Miriam Chaikin, Poets’ Billow and ruth weiss Foundation honors, and Constance Saltonstall Foundation residencies.

Plant a Lily by Mike Jewett (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Plant a Lily
by Mike Jewett

Tin pan alley.
Sundays threaten
beatboxers timpani
& siskins (Spinus
pinus). Dabs of
mustard preened
into drab feathers.

Tiny hymns conga —
groundswells for
roving feet.

You did this to me.

Delicate ragtimes
shatter under
cloudcover
& cold ER
linens.

You did this to me.

Her radiated head
shattered bald
with cloudcover.

Robins shout
cheerio cheerio
outside the ink
of window glass
like Sistine
photography

minefields
of malpractice.

Scantily clad the way
unopened newspapers
are, the way prayer
marinates tongues,
& tonight your sighs
are my gasps.

You did this to me.
An exaltation of
guilt amounting
to an oil slick.
You made me breed

thunder to ward off
your state. Cheerio
cheerio. A tin pan
bedpan clangs
loudest when

overflowing
with coins.

It was all I could do
to put you here.

It was all I could do
to save you.

Bing Crosby whistling
’round and ’round, warm
crackling fire of vinyl
lovingly tracing the curves
of the air from wooden
speakers. Too much

medicine slowly killed
you so fast. My permission
didn’t know. My permission
just didn’t know.

You did this to me you
told me as I held on to you,
a brutal echo thirty years
ago, your last words
last will and testament
last rites

indelible. On the seventh
day you rested and He was
resurrected and we buried you
and today, robins cheerio and
today, their eggs are blue and
today, I will save you and
today, I did this to you and today,

I will plant a lily.

PAINTING: White Lilies by Alex Katz (1966).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem came about as my sudden grief of my grandmother’s death 30 years ago, her last words to my mother before she died, and the brutal guilt that has plagued my mother since.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: My mother and maternal grandmother, around 1970.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mike Jewett is published extensively. He runs a poetry workshop in Boston, Massachusetts. His first books of poetry are due for publication during 2024.

Kintsugi by Beth Copeland (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Kintsugi
by Beth Copeland

Mother’s Japanese friends
send cards she forgets

to open—prints of blond
birds flying

over turquoise waves, pine branches
burdened with snow. Her mailbox,

stuffed with letters
and junk. I slice

into an envelope and pluck a handwritten
note from Kinko-san: I have not heard

from you. I am worried. You are so
old. Mother snorts, She’s

almost as old as I am!
and we laugh

at what’s lost
in translation. She forgets bills,

to brush her teeth or swallow
her thyroid pills and Lipitor

but remembers Kinko-san
from long ago. Should I write to say you’re

okay? I’ll do it
later, but she won’t. She stares

at a maple for hours when I’m
not here, her hair a corona

of uncombed
dandelion seeds. Should I

laugh or cry? Like a broken
bowl mended with molten

gold, she’s more
beautiful than before. I hold

her in the heart
of my heart

where she’s whole.

Originally published in the author’s collection, Blue Honey, recipient of the 2017 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, The Broadkill River Press, 2017. 

PHOTO: Teacup with gold streaks exhibiting Kintsugi repair (Vlad islavovich, photographer). Kintsugi celebrates breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote “Kintsugi” when my mother was in an assisted living home because she had short-term memory loss. She would forget to check her mail, and one day we found a card from Kinko-san, a woman she knew when she and my father were serving as missionaries in Japan during the 1950s. She and Kinko-san had corresponded with each other for 50 years.

PHOTO: The author with her mother Louise, her older sister Joy, and Kinko-san and her family on the occasion of Kinko-san’s son’s first birthday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Beth Copeland is the author of Selfie with Cherry (Glass Lyre Press, 2022); Blue Honey, 2017 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize winner; Transcendental Telemarketer (BlazeVOX, 2012); and Traveling through Glass, 1999 Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Award winner. Shibori Blue: Thirty-six Views of The Peak, a collection of her original photographs and poems, is forthcoming from Redhawk Press.

The Circle of Life, Or How I Became My Mother’s Moth-er by Jackie Oldham (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

The Circle of Life, Or How I Became My Mother’s Moth-er
by Jackie Oldham

The Joy of Parents
is preparing their children
for Life.

The Pain of Children
is preparing their parents
for Death.

These words I wrote
three months ago,
after helping my mother navigate
an uncharacteristic
moment of fear

When, on a steamy August night,
I accidentally let three moths
into her house,
while she was talking to her sister
on the phone.

So unnerved was she
that she abruptly ended the call,
and enlisted me—
the child who used to run away
from butterflies—
to get rid of these moths!

Mom turned off the lights
In the kitchen and dining room,
while I turned down the living room light.

Then, she turned on the front porch light
to lure the moths to the screen door.

One moth took the bait,
landing on the screen.
I carefully opened the screen door
while closing the main door
behind me.

The moth flew away.

Back inside,
I stared
as Mom,
reaching for something
on the darkened dining room table,
suddenly flinched away from the second moth,
which had landed
in her outstretched hand.

The moth flew into the living room,
landing on the wall
near the dim lamp.

I rolled up a newspaper page,
smashed the moth,
then wiped the detritus
from the wall
with a handy paper towel.

The third moth was
a ghost, unseen
and never found.

I took my leave
from caregiving
for the night,
returning to my own home,

still worried about that third,
unseen moth.

Seven months later,
my Mother flew away.

IMAGE: Moth, watercolor by Ekaterina Kim.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem was originally written and published on my blog in 2017, as part of a longer poem titled “The Circle of Life,” a missive about the stages of life as positions on a clock. But I was never fully satisfied with that poem. I wanted the incident with my mother to stand on its own. When I read about the Silver Birch Press ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Poetry Series, I saw an opportunity to reframe and express the deeper meaning of the incident by introducing the metaphor of “mother” and “moth-er.”

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Mother’s & Daughter’s Graduation Photos. Above: Dorothy Barber Oldham, Graduate of Frederick Douglass High School, Baltimore, Maryland (February 1950, age 17 years, 4 months); Right: Jackie Oldham, Graduate of Western High School, Baltimore, Maryland (May 1970, age 16 years, 7 months). Douglass High School (founded in 1883 as the Colored High and Training School), second oldest U.S. high school specifically for African-Americans, has produced many prominent African-American leaders. Western High School (founded in 1844) is the oldest public all-female high school in the U.S. Both schools are still in existence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jackie Oldham (she/her) is an essayist, poet, blogger, format editor, musician, and photographer from Baltimore, Maryland. Her poems have appeared in the journals WOC This Way for Poetry, Minyan Magazine, Spillwords Press, Rigorous Magazine, Oddball Magazine, and Global Poemic, and in A Lovely Place, A Fighting Place, A Charmer: The Baltimore Anthology (Gary M. Almeter and Raphael Alvarez, editors, Belt Publishing, 2022). Her personal blog can be found at baltimoreblackwoman.com, with companion Facebook and Instagram accounts. With Rafael Alvarez, she cofounded the blog braciolejournal.com (History of Poetry in Baltimore/1945 to the Present). As a format editor, she worked with Baltimore author Rosearl Julian West to format West’s memoir, Reflections: My Journey on Arunah, for publication on Amazon.com.

Giver of Gifts by Neil Creighton (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Giver of Gifts
by Neil Creighton

For Brenda Lynette Creighton, 1919-2014

You have been gone for a decade and I thought
I had left the burden of your sad last years behind
but last night I dreamt of you, my subliminal mind
again wrestling with your diminishment,
the sad music of your betrayal not just of me
but most importantly of your best self,
how you, in extreme age and toxic co-dependency,
secretly succumbed to entitlement and exploitation.

I woke sadly subdued, burdened by grief
but as the day resolved into blue sky
I desired to remember your best self.
I wanted to remember your real music,
to see that dark dream of your declining years
as just a bar or two in a song
that was bright, joyous and giving.

Then I saw in the light of the day
that you were always a giver of gifts.
When you were young it was with generosity
and beautifully even-handed fairness.
Who amongst your dependent children felt excluded?
All were showered with your love.
This is the real music of your life
and it is rich, lyrical and beautiful.
Of this, giver of gifts, I will sing.

When I lay in helpless dependency
from your touch and nurture came bedrock emotions,
joy of touch, laughter, love and trust.
When I ran through my secret path in reedy swamp
or explored the blue lake’s rocky shore,
or romped through the tree-filled hillside,
untrammeled freedom and unthinking security
were the great gifts you gave me.
When the war hero’s health turned sour
and suppressed memory in temper raged
you were strength in gentleness,
steadfastness and calm emotional control.
You were the rock on which we stood,
the rope to shore through the maddening sea.

What then of that last gift, when, in your extreme age
and belying all your past days
you secretly cut me loose from material gifts,
seemingly severing me from the bond of family and love.
I felt as if I had been cast into adversity’s forge
but the fierceness of its fire burned pure,
tempering, testing and purging impurities,
the dross of grief, disappointment, and bewilderment.
In that fire I was liberated from childish expectation.
What it left were great gifts:
compassion for human weakness;
the awareness of age’s vulnerability;
and the greatest of all, a shining wonder,
the luster of love’s triumph and transcendence.
.
Who could ask for greater gifts?
This inheritance I carry with me always.
For everything and for this last, most precious of gifts,
I thank you, giver of gifts of love,
and I raise my voice to you in song.

PAINTING: Gift Box by Wayne Thiebaud (1971).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Loving Leah (Kelsay) is my book of poems about my mother. It is both a portrait of her and a record of grief. I called her Leah and the narrator Cordelia because in the folly of her extreme age she secretly removed three of her five children from her Will. We excluded ones were shocked and devastated, not for material loss but for exclusion from family and because our exclusion belied everything we thought she stood for. I could have submitted a poem from my book but for Silver Birch Press I wanted something new. I wanted to focus on how generous my mother had been for most of her 95 years. Hence this new poem for her, “Giver of Gifts.” It does stem from a dream I had. I think the dream came because I was thinking about what I would write.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: My family. I am far left.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Neil Creighton is an Australian poet whose work as a teacher of English and Drama brings him into close contact with thousands of young lives, most happy and triumphant but too many tragically filled with neglect or poverty. It makes him intensely aware of how opportunity is so unequally proportioned and his work often reflects a strong interest in social justice. His published works are Loving Leah (Kelsay), Awakening (Cyberwit), Rock Dreaming (Kelsay),  Morteza (Kelsay), and The Colquhoun Chronicles (Kelsay). His poems can also be found in places such as Verse-Virtual, Poets Reading the News, Peacock Journal, Autumn Sky Daily, and New Verse News.

Burden: the word I knew so well so young by Diane Funston (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Burden: the word I knew so well so young
by Diane Funston

Mom is made of glass
hollow and fragile
ready to break.
I was a daughter
of another mother—
her own
I grew up in a waterfalls city
both cistern and fountain
towards and away

Raised by grandmother
Mom was relieved of the burden
a word I knew so well
it surprised my first-grade teacher

We had cats when I was little
Mom baby-talked to
They were bid hello and goodbye
when she entered and left rooms
I was given the silent treatment
cats spoken to with exaggerated volume
hurt my ears and my heart

I never bonded as her daughter
She was a puerile
rebellious sister at best
Grandma was vanilla sugar love
died too soon in my adolescence
I became Mom’s parent
always in those roles

I forgave her years ago
accepted her revisionist apologies
believed after I raised three sons well
I could ease the winter of her elder years

She lives with us now
rescued from a senior high rise
New York State winters
threats of the plague

So little conversation
silent breakfast/ lunch/ dinner
a car passenger without sound
staring straight ahead
Then tv time in evening
we watch Netflix series together
volume loud considering closed captioning
I welcome these now familiar
fictional characters
and consider them as family

PAINTING: Rain, Heavy at Times by Jane Wilson (2004).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem is bittersweet. It paints my mother as she always has been, an adult who never grew up or wanted the responsibility of motherhood. It also pays homage to my grandmother, my mother’s mother, who raised me and who I bonded to as mother.

PHOTO: The author (left) and her mother.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Diane Funston (she/hers) writes poetry of nature and human nature. For two years, she has been the Yuba-Sutter Arts and Culture Poet-in-Residence. In this role, she created Poetry Square, a monthly online venue that featured poets from around the world reading their work and discussing creative process. Her work has appeared in Synkronicity, California Quarterly, Whirlwind, San Diego Poetry Annual, Summation, Tule Review, Lake Affect Magazine, F(r)iction, and other literary journals. Her first chapbook, Over the Falls, was published by Foothills Publishing in July 2022.

Lightly tethered to the earth by Elizabeth Dunford (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Lightly tethered to the earth
by Elizabeth Dunford

My mother dreams of dancing,
has swapped tartan pyjamas
for a taffeta ballgown,
fluffy slippers for silver slingbacks,
and is waltzing with my father,
who in life was heavy-footed,
no sense of rhythm at all.

I dream of walking aids, wheelchairs,
hospital waiting rooms.

My mother dreams of strolling
by a mountain lake in Rajasthan,
on honeymoon with my father
— so handsome in his white suit —
Dad, who in the wedding photograph
is pale, bespectacled, losing his hair.

I dream of the step, kerb, rug
that might trip, break a bird-frail bone.

My mother dreams of floating
upwards through azure air
hand in hand with Dad,
like lovers in a Chagall painting,
and when she wakes,
looks through the window,
smiles in recognition: a sky
of cloudless cornflower blue.

PAINTING: Lovers Over Saint Paul by Marc Chagall (1970).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My mother is 94 and tells me that she often takes a while, on waking, to disentangle dreams from reality. It is certainly true that her memories of the distant past are much more vivid than what happened yesterday. She recalls student balls in Dublin in the late 1940s and her marriage in Bombay in 1955 in colourful detail. My father died a few years ago, but to her he is still very present. I’ve written quite a few poems about them both in the past few years, probably in an attempt to process my own feelings about loss.

PHOTO: The author (left) and her mother (October 2023).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elizabeth Dunford has been published in The Cannon’s Mouth, Snakeskin, Silver Birch Press, Green Ink, and My Happy Place (Nottingham Writers Studio). Her articles and book reviews have been published in Lapidus Journal and in NAWE’s Writing in Education. She won second place in the Carers UK poetry competition. Interested in the relationship between writing and well-being, she holds an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes from the Metanoia Institute. She was born in India, grew up in Northern Ireland, and has lived in Nottingham, England, for over 30 years.

Because She Could by Renee Williams (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Because She Could
by Renee Williams

When the doctor wanted to check her mental acuity and asked her to      spell “world”
she spelled it backwards
because he asked her to do so last time
because she could.

Stepping on the scales like a rap star, dripping in two necklaces, three      bracelets,
and rings on five fingers, she barely weighed 100 lbs.
She wanted to hold her purse—weighing at least 4 lbs.—when she      reached the scales.
She could’ve, but the nurse caught her first.

Her cordless phone, small, lithe, and fragile is much like she.
Her lifeline to the world. Without a vehicle she clings to that phone
knowing so many numbers by heart yet always checking the caller i.d.
Because she might wait until the eighth ring to pick up—or not answer at      all.

Even the cancer couldn’t slow her down, gone now, thankfully.
Her Yorkie tries to keep up with her.
She walks her road at least four times a day, chatting as she goes along,
sidelined only once because she tripped over that brick and broke a bone      in her shoulder.

She talks to everyone and, my, does she ever have questions
everything ranging from the contents of one’s breakfast
to how the neighbor’s mother is faring in rehab after breaking her hip.
Because of this, Dad called her the Mouth of the South.

He also called her the Spunky Hunky
paying homage to some imagined Hungarian roots and a predilection for      spicy food
her temper legendary
because heaven forbid someone didn’t pay a tow bill at Dad’s garage.

She remembers that Maury Povich was married to Connie Chung
not Jerry Springer, as she corrects me.
The whole world stops when it’s time for The Bachelor
because no way she’s answering that phone then.

Betty Boop dark hair and green eyes,
still lovely at 83,
it’s a new world to her since Dad died
yet she sallies forth because she can, watching the neighbors and      blessedly, they watch her.

As a child she’d skip school
and, as the story goes, she hit a little boy with a baseball bat
who later became a state highway patrol officer.
She did it because she could.

Originally appeared in To Write the World: An Anthology of SE Ohio Writers (in conjunction with the Belmont County Library).

PAINTING: Adrienne (Woman with Bangs) by Amedeo Modigliani (1917).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I try to write as much as I can, whenever I can. I’m a storyteller and a photographer. I feel most fulfilled when I’m outside, spending time with animals. I hope that my work can do some good in this world, maybe brighten someone’s day, or make someone feel less alone.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Can she really finish all that? Betty Bails, Pizza Crossing, Logan, Ohio.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Renee Williams is from Nelsonville, Ohio. A retired English instructor, her poetry has appeared in Of Rust and Glass, Alien Buddha Press zines, Verse-Virtual, Deep South Magazine, Panoply, Impspired, Sein und Werden, The Rye Whiskey Review, The Amethyst Review, The New Verse News, and Beatnik Cowboy among others. She has also written interviews and concert reviews for Guitar Digest. Her photography has been featured in the Corolla Wild Horse Fund calendars, the Santa Fe Review, Moss Piglet, Anti-Heroin Chic, Swim Press, Lumineire, as well as several others. She enjoys spending time with her family and dogs; she takes orders from her cranky cat who bosses her around daily.

Alzheimer’s Baby by Daniel McGinn (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Alzheimer’s Baby
by Daniel McGinn

When I visited my mother
in the Alzheimer’s ward she didn’t know my name.

She had a few pictures on the wall.
One was a print from a painting of the Gerber baby.

It looked like a promotional item from the 1920s.
My mother pointed at the baby and whispered, That’s me.

I didn’t know this portrait hung in her childhood bedroom.
If my brain goes, I won’t know who I am, just what remains.

She stared out of her wheelchair, didn’t move
or speak much, only finding a few words at a time.

Most of her words had left her. When I was leaving
I asked my mother if I could kiss her.

I was a stranger. I didn’t want to startle her.
She recognized me, for a moment.

In a whisper she said, You’re my son.
I kissed her on the cheek and said goodbye.

IMAGE: Drawing of the original Gerber baby, introduced in 1928 by Gerber Products Company.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel McGinn’s work has appeared in Silver Birch Press, The MacGuffin, Nerve Cowboy, Spillway, Misfit, Meat For Tea, and Anti-Heroin Chic, along with numerous other magazines and anthologies. His most recent chapbook, Drowning the Boy, won the James Tate Poetry Prize for 2021 and was published by SurVision in Dublin Ireland. Fill Me With Birds, a free verse conversation written with Scott Ferry was published by Meat For Tea in February 2024.

Remembering Ralph Edwards by Alan Walowitz (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Remembering Ralph Edwards
by Alan Walowitz

My mother, a practical sort, never offered
the forced élan of long-term wanting,
or the thrill of spontaneous combustion.
In fact, she never made demands at all—
till now, when she announces to any who’ll listen
I want my personality back.

I don’t know where to go to get,
but I’ve learned how to distract—
to talk about the weather;
how my daughter’s doing in school;
how you have to sleep the night
if you want to keep whatever world you’ve got
from bursting into flame.
That’s nothing, she hisses, like a long, slow leak
then waves her arms, elbows locked,
as if they’re meant to break like waves,
as if that would show me how.

This is the stuff you never got
at your mother’s apron strings
as you learned to pair the socks,
counted pennies into rolls,
or yelled Rummy loud enough
to be heard in a roomful of Jews.
If I had the guts I’d exclaim,
Esther, this is your life!
Then my practical mother
might return for just a moment and add,
Whether you asked for it or not.
Or even better, maybe she’d say,
Not now, I’m busy.

From The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems (Truth Serum Press).

PHOTO: Title sequence for This Is Your Life (1954).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: In my mother’s last year on this planet, I’d often help her sift through her memories—photos, people, movies, and shows we’d seen together. As her last year unfolded, she became less happy and somewhat angry. This Is Your Life, which aired from the late 1940s through the 1960s, was an early reality show. Each week, the host and producer of the show, Ralph Edwards, retold the life story of a famous or not-so-famous person—someone who had led an interesting life. Those who were featured on This Is Your Life  were usually not told in advance that their story was about to be revisited in front of a national audience.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: My mother, Esther Karp, 1936, probably age 16, in her Bushwick High School graduation gown, twirling and happy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual. His Exactly Like Love comes from Osedax Press. The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems, is available from Truth Serum Press. From Arroyo Seco Press, In the Muddle of the Night, written with poet Betsy Mars. The chapbook, The Poems of the Air, is from Red Wolf Editions. Free for downloading.

PHOTO: Esther Karp Walowitz and her son, Alan, on her 94th birthday, April 26, 2013. Still happy.