Literary Mama: Mothers of Invention

Born in 2003, the online magazine Literary Mama "was the brainchild of women writers frustrated by what they perceived as a lack of readily available literary writing about motherhood." Andrea J. Buchanan and Amy Hudock, currently the managing editor and editor in chief, respectively, of literarymama.com, have gleaned the "standout pieces" from the Web site and collected them in Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined (Seal; paperback, $14.95).

The editors emphasize that "motherhood as a theme is worthy of great literature -- and that mothers are capable of writing it." Buchanan and Hudock are quick to point out that this is a collection of motherhood literature, not to be confused with " 'momoir' -- dismissive label." Their goal is "to take writing about motherhood seriously" -- taken to an extreme that may well scare away potential readers who are not mothers.

Literary Mamas includes memoirs, fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry by contributors who are long-time and first-time writers, scholars and grandmothers, all focused on motherhood in its infinite varieties. Here are women "writing through the distractions" and the "domestic chaos"; women dealing with the oft-repeated theme of balancing, doing the "devastating dance" of working and mothering; mothers who go crazy and others who just go; mothers who have tantrums -- "there is something to be said for a tantrum"; a woman who "thought having a baby would not change my life"; a poet with only "a handful of poems to show," but a "poemchild, whose smile is all my sonnets." Fit and unfit mothers, all imperfect in their separate ways.

Here, too, is all the busy work of mothers -- women engaged continually in those active gerunds that have been on mothers' to-do lists through the centuries: nursing, weaning, caring, cleaning, teaching, fixing, helping, healing, hoping, fearing. Among my favorites are Megeen R. Mulholland's poem "Miscarriage of an English Teacher" and Heidi Raykeil's excerpt from her memoir about the death of her baby, "Johnny."

Not unlike other anthologies, this one is uneven, but, still, it's nice to have these pieces retrieved from the Web and tucked between the covers of this book.

-- Evelyn Small