The Massachusetts Poetry Festival 2017

Four poets of different ages, ethnicities and life experience discuss issues that arise in writing about motherhood and read from their own and other writers’ poems. We will look at motherhood in its many guises—pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, birth, raising children, caring for grandchildren, letting go. Topics may include what responsibility, if any, we have to members of the family; how we deal with difficult—embarrassing or shameful?—experiences; how to express strong emotion without melodrama or sentimentality; why we may feel motherhood as a subject is often pigeon-holed or seen as unimportant by editors and readers. There will be time for audience discussion.