Our twentieth annual print issue of
MER
is themed "Mother Figures." What is a mother figure? What have we been told or shown by them? What values do they reflect? What cultural learning do they assume? How does a "mother figure" deviate from one's own experiences? In online poetry and prose folios this year, we have explored several aspects of the concept: "Mother in Objects," "Mothers and Children," "The Mother Role," "Storied Mothers," and "Other Mothers." Visit our website, momeggreview.com, to explore the folios. These and other themes are investigated in the current print issue. Our contributors, established writers and emerging debut authors, responded with work that is resonant, original, and thoughtful, and which considers a dizzying range of mother figures: some worthy of emulation and some, cautionary tales, some selected and some foisted upon us. The writer may have chosen to stand outside the figure or to assume its persona. Many writers recognized lineage, a personal "mother figure," who, by existence or example, has nourished them. Here are mothers from the classics, mythology, and fairy tales. Animal, vegetable (a potato!), and mineral mothers. A surprising number of insect mothers. Mother figures from religions (many Marys), and from several cultures, including pop culture. Historical mothers. Tragic and triumphant mothers. Murderers, martyrs, and midwives. Intellectual, artist, and writer mothers. We have fairy godmothers, witches, saints and the all-too-human. Planets can be mothers, as can moons. The diversity of mother figures can be said to reflect a multiplicity of actual motherhoods. The literary and art work in this issue illuminate figures of motherhood, in concept and in practice.