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"I was entrusted with carrying voices, songs, and stories to grow and release into the world, to 

be of assistance and inspiration," Joy Harjo from Crazy Brave.  

 

 

Kore Press Points
Notes From the Motherfield / Soma Mei Sheng Frazier
2015 First Book Award 

 

Notes from the Motherfield is a curated interview series f notes and other writings of various shapes and durations by motherwriters  

Motherhood as Grand Mal (and
a few other things) 
by Soma Mei Sheng Frazier
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier & Zoe

 
"Childless friends often ask me to describe it: Life as a mother. But how?

 

Once I met my daughter Zoe, I realized I'd known nothing about love before, and that's an offensive thing to say to someone without kids. It makes you a real asshole. So perhaps-- 

 

* Poet's Answer

 

Motherhood is intangible: quite the opposite of, say, the craggy new stitches that once bisected my friend's tongue and the disparate eras in an otherwise seamless life - the easy undoubting years before he learned of the epilepsy, biting himself badly during that first seizure, and all the other years to come. (or) All love is imbued with yearning, but this yearning answers itself completely; all love is selfish, yes, but this love is more selfish than the lover. It will crack you before you can crack it, and even then you'll thank it on your knees. (or) My life was a hot mess. But the devil handed me a bus pass home from Hades in the delivery room, along with a tall, cool glass of water. (or) It's something that makes you deeply humble, though others will see you as overly proud, and it's something that should make you better, too. (or) On second thought, maybe it is like the stitches: long dissolved from his tongue, but to my friend ever present and still tender. . . " 

 

see the full essay here. 

 
 

2015 First Book Award
open now, deadline April 30, 11:59pm MST  
Tracie Morris judge

 

 full contest guidelines & previous winners here

 

A prize of $1500 and trade book publication for a first,

full-length book of poems to a female writer.

$28 reading fee 

 

Tracie Morris is a poet who has worked extensively as a page-based writer, sound poet, critic, scholar, bandleader, actor and multimedia performer. Her sound installations have been presented at the Whitney Biennial, MoMA, Ronald Feldman Gallery, The Silent Barn, The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, The Drawing Center, The Gramsci Monument with Thomas Hirshhorn for the DIA Foundation and other galleries and museums. Tracie presents her work extensively as a poet, performer and scholar around the globe and has presented, performed and researched in almost 30 countries and 37 US States. Tracie is Professor and Coordinator of Performance Studies at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and is currently a MacDowell and Yaddo Fellow.