Violent Mother, Saintly Son

EKSwitaj — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:36:03 -0500

The roles assigned to mother and son in Seth Michelson's Fragments
trouble me. He gives us a saintly son who clings to his mother's legs
"even when kicked and cursed and kicked . . . knowing only to forgive"
and a terribly violent mother who screams to a degree unwarranted by
the child's (probably) accidental dropping of a gravy boat and then
kicks him when she is really raging against something else, some idea
of mortality and Malthusian evolution that the poet evokes (not
entirely successfully) rather specifying.

Were it just one son and one violent mother, I would take no issue with this.

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Violent Mother, Saintly Son