'Mother Tongue' Celebrates the Language of Home

Here is the press release for my latest book, Mother Tongue, which is available online and at Studio Hill Gallery at 507 Main Street South, Woodbury:

(WOODBURY, Conn. - 2 March 2023) - The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, says a Chinese proverb.  The same is true for the journey home.  One step, one beat at a time, brings us closer to home and deeper into an understanding of what it means to be where we belong.  

The meaning of home and the voice it engenders is the subject of Woodbury Poet Laureate Sandy Carlson’s sixth collection of poetry Mother Tongue. “Each poem is the product of the landscape of Woodbury and its environs,” says Carlson, adding,  “to be a part of a place, to pay attention to it, is to find your voice there and to say something.  This is what we do when we are at home, and this is what I do in Woodbury.”

Each sonnet in this collection explores how home and mother love shape language.  Home is both the place on the map where we make our lives as well as the lives we make; mother tongue comes from Mother, Mother Earth, and the mothering love we experience in the world around us.  “These poems are personal utterances honoring who loves us and where.  As a form, the sonnet lends itself to deeply personal writing; these are my love letters to my world,” Carlson says.  

“These poems continue my exploration of the question of what it means to be here, to be with each other, to understand ourselves as part of a family and a community rooted in history and living right here and now,” Carlson says. “The words mother and matter share the same Latin root, mater, and mean origin or source, a substance from which something is made.  Materia also refers to the hard inner word of a tree. Ultimately, these definitions take us back to Mother Earth; both the natural world and the linguistic one are mother gifts.  These poems are an expression of my gratitude to my mother.”