Mom by Nisa Donnelly

In her introduction to this anthology, Nisa Donnelly describes the particular bond between mothers and their lesbian daughters: 'We are the women our mothers warned us about and, at the same time, the women they made us.' This collection examines the complexities of a lesbian's first woman-to-woman relationship. Linda Smukler's poem 'St. Francis' suggests that the mother is the primary object of all kinds of contradictory love: love as a tease, as an unexpected caress, as beauty, as a scream. Lucy Jane Bledsoe's essay 'Searching for the Mythic Mother Mentor' describes the author's desire to find a lesbian forebear in her own family. 'Poa Poa is Livng Breathing Light' is Kitty Tsui's record of finding such a strong female character in her grandmother. Among the other contributors to this book are Judy Grahn, Hillary Mullins, Donna Allegra and newcomers Terrie Akemi-Hamazaki and G. L. Morrison. --Rebecca Brown