Exceedingly My Mother

Gratitude to Luther Hughes for writing so movingly about my poem, “I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party” (first published in Poem-a-Day) in his monthly column for Frontier Poetry, “You Smell Like Outside.”

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This post is to say, I don’t know how to feel about my mother. I love her, please don’t get me wrong. I love her with my entire body. But when does love lose to respect? Is this even an interrogation worth having? I don’t know. I don’t know. We have fun. We laugh. We “talk” as much as I can. I want to talk to her about how I feel about him. About how he makes me happy even when he’s just watching tv.

—Luther Hughes

I love seeing how folks, especially other LGBTQ folks, have connected with this poem—and how it’s leading to further thinking and feeling about these relationships with our mothers. Read here.

Chen ChenDecember 6, 2018My poems, Luther Hughes, Column, Frontier Poetry, You Smell Like Outside, I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party, New work, Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, Poem-a-Day, Essay, Quote