Overview

Sarah Ahrens's poetic memoir, Mother Minotaur, explores disability and motherhood through the lens of the Minotaur myth. The collection opens with a female Minotaur lost in the Labyrinth of Crete, tracing a narrative thread that runs back to the origin of her hearing loss and her struggle to understand her young children's differently wired brains. Her experience of confusion and inadequacy intensifies as she encounters mythical figures like Ariadne and Icarus's mother, as well as her sleepwalking son and dreaming mother, before she finally confronts her own fear and self-doubt. How can she find her way out of the labyrinth if loss is something she carries inside her? And does transformation always require sacrifice? Featuring a Pushcart-nominated poem, Mother Minotaur will engage readers interested in the intersection of memoir and myth, the challenge of raising neurodivergent kids in an ableist world, and the way disability informs the labor of being an artist and a mother.

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Reviews

With its reimagining of a foundational Greek myth, Sarah Ahrens's marvelous Mother Minotaur joins the company of such distinguished works as Louise Glück's Meadowlands and Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red. What makes her book especially moving is its candid interweaving of the most intimate experiences-medical crises, disability, the challenge of parenting neurodivergent children-with the tale of the minotaur, whom Ahrens boldly recasts as a mother helping to guide her young through and from the maze of her own being. All the elements of the classic story-Ariadne, Daedalus, Theseus, monster, labyrinth, red thread-take on new resonances as they embody the pain, guilt, tenderness, and joy of motherhood, in poems that shimmer between myth and memoir. -Roger Gilbert, Cornell University, author of the forthcoming In the Wind My Rescue Is: The Life and Art of A. R. Ammons (Princeton University Press) In this powerful debut collection, Sarah Ahrens leads us through the beautiful, shadowy labyrinth that is her experience of living with hearing loss and mothering twice-gifted children. This unflinching and moving book reminds us that to love deeply is to participate in a mystery that delivers great joy-and brings us to our knees, again and again. -Mark Rader, author of The Wanting Life Sarah Ahrens's MOTHER MINOTAUR is more than a collection; it is a brilliant labyrinth that spirals like the inner ear. Inside you will find the maternal body stitched back together with a mythological thread so long it reaches all of us in the astonishing present. To read Ahrens is to get lost with her at home, and be at home inside her lostness. An absolutely beautiful debut. -Sabrina Orah Mark, author of Happily

Author Information

Sarah Ahrens, Ph.D. teaches writing at Harvard University in the Division of Continuing Education. Her work has been published in Longridge Review, Modern Loss, The Washington Post, Avidly, and Romantic Circles.

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