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      May 31, 2018Your Favorite Writer Is Not Your MotherJill M. Talbot

      Image: “Through the Looking Glass” by Melody Carr. “Your Favorite Writer Is Not Your Mother” was written by Jill M. Talbot for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

      All writers are exiles wherever they live and their work is a lifelong journey towards the lost land.
      —Janet Frame

      Just because she looks
      Like you, or looks like
      Your mother, that does
      Not make your favorite
      Writer your mother. Just
      Because she slept with
      Bones, was misdiagnosed
      With the same lucid
      Dreams, or swallowed
      The same blue pills.
      Just because she lived
      In little houses or had
      Siblings die young, or
      Finds odd things funny.
      Just because she had
      Unbearable hair and teeth.
      Just because you planted
      A turtle under a rock.
      Just because there’s a photo
      Of a hospital, of weeds
      Growing out of eyes.
      Just because you don’t have
      A better half. Just because
      You’re a quarter the way
      Home. None of this
      Makes your favorite writer
      Your mother.
      Just ask her.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “Out of over 300 poems submitted to April’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Jill Talbot leaped the farthest from the literal. Propelled along by a strong rhythm, it’s a startling poem about refraction and resemblances, about the way relationships are stacked in our minds like layers in the double-image that inspired it. I’m not sure how she got to the door she opens for us, but it was the poem that woke me up into a new and unexpected space.”

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