The ocean in me swells with a warning: It’s the salt that alters fresh water to brine. (His salt). I once grew a blooming reef and sheltered a tiny, silvery fish ‘til she was ready to slip through the coral archway. She took the reef with her. It’s okay, I tell myself. I like feeling still. Too much salt kills. Even the Dead Sea is dying.
The Mother Myths
Our very own Zoë Etkin has released her third book, The Mother Myths, a collection of poems that explores what society tells us makes a “good mother,” and how those myths and narratives create internalized tension, self-doubt, and shame in new mothers. The poems in The Mother Myths span from the time of childbirth through the first few years postpartum, chronicling the tender beauty of this time, as well as the deep grief of lost identity and changed body. This collection puts the raw and real aspects of the postpartum period into the light for all to see, exposing what so many mothers go through in the Western version of parenthood. Any mother who reads this collection is sure to find a piece of her own experience somewhere in the book, and in doing so, knows she is not alone.
