The Stories Our Mothers Don't Tell Us

A Poetry Mixtape Edited by Joanne Epp

Joanne's Liner Notes

For most of us, our earliest human relationship is with our mothers, and for the first years of our lives it’s often the most intimate. And yet, there are many reasons why we might find it a challenge to really know our mothers well.

My mother grew up on a farm, in a very large family, back when housework and farm work involved a lot more manual labour. I grew up in town, with only one sibling; I now live in a city, and have a washer and dryer and dishwasher. And so, even though her birthplace and mine are only 15 kilometres apart, there was a marked difference between my mother’s world and mine. When she tells me stories from her childhood she sometimes remarks, “You probably can’t even imagine that.”

Several of the poets in this collection have mothers who grew up in another country altogether, within a different language and culture. Although the child may know something of the mother’s country, they can never know it in quite the same way. Even learning the mother’s language can, paradoxically, emphasize the distance between mother and child. Then, too, a mother may have reasons to keep things from her children. She may carry memories of trauma she doesn’t want to relive. Or it may simply be that—deliberately or not—she holds a part of herself separate, distinct from the day-to-day duty and stress of mothering.

It can take a long time till we’re ready to hear our mothers’ stories, and these poems illustrate the many ways in which both telling and listening can be complicated. When we’re growing up, we don’t necessarily pay attention to our mothers as people; we see them more in terms of what they do, or don’t do, for us. Even when we are ready, hearing what they have to say may call for patience, and a willingness to hear difficult things. Their stories are often told indirectly, and some stories are not told at all, but left for us to piece together on our own.

Yet these poems also reveal how it’s possible to recognize our mothers as people in their own right. Differences in temperament and upbringing, in ways of seeing and living in the world, don’t have to be obstacles. Like the daughter in Doyali Islam’s “bhater mondo,” we may not know how to cook like our mothers, but we can hold tightly to their stories.

Poem readings

The Poems

Tonja Gunvaldsen Klaassen

Mama

When the horse picked Mama up by the hair

that time, was she scared? 

There is a photograph of her with this horse

in the brown family album. She stands

beside him, thin in the chilly wind

Ada Limón

The Raincoat

When the doctor suggested surgery

and a brace for all my youngest years,

my parents scrambled to take me

to massage therapy, deep tissue work,

osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine

Rosanna Deerchild

the second time

i ask mama

about residential school

she says no

 

i ask her again

she says no

 

the third time

 

i stop listen

to her silence

 

Liz Howard

1992

This is our welfare half

a duplex with mint green

siding shrugged between

Jessica Johns

How Not to Spill

Dad has creases on his hands so thick they could split with a

poke. He gestures for me to try so I do. His skin bends on a

hinge and out spills every good and bad thing: cattails from our

Amy Uyematsu

A Practical Mom

can go to Bible study every Sunday

and swear she’s still not convinced,

but she likes to be around people who are.

We have the same conversation

every few years — I’ll ask her if she stops

Tamar Rubin

Perennial

For thirty-one years, my mother tried not to miss her. Every week, 

a little water or the trickle of a few ice cubes

dropped

 

in black earth. Years back, in the muck of Toronto, April,

Doyali Islam

bhater mondo

my mother used to make little rice balls

for me. she steamed and clattered about the 

cramped mustard kitchen, filling a pot with 

water, swelling and salting and songing

Kaie Kellough

Mantra of No Return

my mother occupies the passenger seat. my brother and i

                     stick in the back.

Di Brandt

my mother found herself

my mother found herself one late summer

afternoon lying in grass under the wild

yellow plum tree jewelled with sunlight

she was forgotten there in spring picking 

rhubarb for pie & the children home from

Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang

Winter House

My father threw his language overboard,

a bag of kittens, waterlogged mewling:

small hard bodies.

 

My mother hung on to hers —

Wove the words like lace, an open web

Anna Belle Kaufman

Cold Solace

When my mother died,

one of her honey cakes remained in the freezer.

I couldn’t bear to see it vanish,

so it waited, pardoned,

in its ice cave behind the metal trays

for two more years.

 

J-Card (PDF)

PIV-Liner_Stories-our-mothers-dont-tell-us.pdf

Recommended reading

 

Julia Kasdorf, “What I Learned from My Mother.” On poetryfoundation.org.

Roger Nash, “This is my mother’s camera.” In Canadian Literature 113-114 (1987).

Carolyn Nakagawa, “Your Mother Goes to Work.” In Canthius, Issue 08.

Ocean Vuong, “Dear Rose.” In Harper’s Magazine December 2017.

J.J. Steinfeld, “Displaced Person.” On Poetry Pause (League of Canadian Poets).

Ross Gay, “Ending the Estrangement.” On poetryfoundation.org.

Thylias Moss, “She’s Florida Missouri But She Was Born in Valhermosa and Lives in Ohio.” On poetryfoundation.org

Crystal Wilkinson, “Asking About My Mother.” On poets.org

 

Katherine Lawrence, Black Umbrella. The poems in the opening section of this poetry collection explore the fractures in the life of a family, and the mingled love and regret evoked by a daughter’s recollections of her mother.

Rosanna Deerchild, Calling Down the Sky. My mixtape includes a poem from this book, but I think it’s important to also read the entire collection. This is a powerful poetic account of one woman’s ordeal in residential schools, and how her daughter learns to hear her story. Scroll down below the book description to listen to an interview with Rosanna Deerchild on CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter.

many gendered mothers: not literal mothers, but literary—this blog contains essays by writers (mainly Canadian) on the other writers who influenced them, directly or indirectly, and helped them find their place in the world.

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