Transcript for the Piece Audio version of A Review of Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood

In honor of Black History Month, MOMbo producer Nanci Olesen read RISE UP SINGING: BLACK WOMEN WRITERS ON MOTHERHOOD, edited by Cecelie S. Berry. Here?s her review:

Here is a quote from Martha Southgate, in her essay ?Unnatural Woman?:
?I am a writer, but I also have chosen to have children. And there?s the rub. I?m 41 years old and I love my children, enormously. I?m a fairly good parent, but it?s not easy for me. It?s not easy for anyone, but I find it harder than most. Family life?taking care of others, the bump and rub of a group?I?ve never been comfortable with it.?

Southgate?s essay is about half way through the book Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood. This collection of stories and essays was edited by Cecelie S. Berry, who also grapples with her decision to be a mom who is at home raising her kids.

The collection that Berry has put together kept me in one place in my own living room for the better part of a day, taking in the stories of black women reflecting on their own motherhood, their grandmothers, their mothers, their children. Section 1 is entitled ?Aria of the Matriarch? and opens with an urgent poem by Maya Angelou:

No angel stretched protecting wings/ above the heads of her children, fluttering and urging the winds of reason / into the confusion of their lives. They sprouted like young weeds?

It?s a poem called ?Our Grandmothers? and as I read it in the winter sun I could hear Maya Angelou?s strong voice.

We move from there into stories of black grandmothers in every part of the United States, fiercely and gently raising their children.

The next section is Dream Song: A Mother?s Interior World, and it is here that the complex questions of modern motherhood are addressed by writers such as Evelyn Coleman , Deborah Roberts, and Felicia Ward. I could relate to these stories of the constant internal battle between being a good parent and fulfilling one?s own dreams. The stories of resistance, of courage, and of everyday meaning are clear and they do sing out.

Novelist Marita Golden states clearly: ?Motherhood cleansed and baptized me like some necessary massive tidal wave I hungered to meet and to know; it sharpened my sense of myself, and of all the women residing within me. None of the men I?ve loved, the countries I?ve lived in or journeyed to, the books I?ve written, transformed me as did loving and raising my child for a decade as a single parent.?

I loved reading these intimate stories and essays about the circumstances of motherhood. Within these pages are stories of incredible hardship, of racism faced head on, of abortion and divorce and stepmothering. One writer reminds us of Kahlil Gibran?s famous poem: ?On Children?: ?Your children are not your children, they are the sons and the daughters of life, longing for itself.?

Editor Cecelie S. Berry describes her dream of bringing this book to life when she attended the Million Mom March on Mother?s Day, 2000. I could feel her strength and ambition as I read her comments in the forward to this collection. She describes the book, the march, and the life of building a home as the ultimate revolution. She talks about marching forward, shoulder to shoulder with other mothers, as we quote connect the dots, bear witness, share the wisdom, give thanks, express the love, remember, forgive, endure, and rise up singing.

Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood is published by Harlem Moon, a division of Random House. It was published in 2004 and is widely available. Find it, read it and Rise up, singing. I?m Nanci Olesen.