winner of The Paul Nemser Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books
Praise for Madre Dura
“With carbon copies, scraps of inherited Spanish, and old snapshots, Melody Wilson explores
object permanence within a family full of Madre Dura––“tough mothers.” A matrilineal heritage of names, features, likeness and resistance float through this elegiac collection where “All mothers are mythologies // feathery fables with tongues.” In rich sensory detail and flexible form, readers discover “La Línea” in these poems––the line of complex relationships rooted in transgression and bounded by early deaths. “How much of them is me, how much of me is you,” wonders the speaker who traces the lives of grandmother, mother, sisters, daughters, and granddaughter. Wilson concludes, “…maybe we’re talking about all of us, / eventually, how everything ends in ashes.” Madre Dura is a compelling collection that invites readers to consider how to grapple with uncertainty: how we all might be capable of both holding on and letting go.” –Ellen Bass, author of Indigo, Like a Beggar and The Human Line.
All mothers are mythologies
feathery fables with tongues.
Some glide on glassy ponds,
a cygnet beneath each wing.
Others deposit one blue egg
on its father’s feet and migrate
away. Mine was a condor,
subsisted on carrion. I didn’t know
she teetered between brilliant
and extinct until she hoisted me
to my grandmother’s casket,
insisted, kiss her goodbye.
I couldn’t yet measure
the distances of death,
but tasted the grief gurgling
in my mother’s unbeautiful throat.
Even the shade of a wingspan like that
is fleeting. Best to swallow whole
whatever comes from her mouth
About Melody Wilson
Melody Wilson is a Pushcart nominated poet whose work appears in
Willow Springs, Calyx, One, The Emerson Review, Nimrod, Rust and
Moth, and many other publications. Her awards include an Academy
of American Poets Prize, the Patricia Dobler Award, and others. She is
founder of the poetry collective Zalon and teaches poetry for Portland
Community College both in traditional classrooms and the correctional
setting. A graduate of Pacific University’s MFA program, she lives in
Portland, Oregon with her husband Phillip and their dog Z. Find more
of her work at melodywilson.com
