Praise for The Mother Who Couldn’t Describe a Thing if She Could:

Murayama’s The Mother Who Couldn’t Describe a Thing if She Could is obsessed with lineages: what mothers bequeath and what daughters are bequeathed. Sickness and health, barriers and connection, what we lose and what we gain—with prose so rich and so lyric, seeking to both uncover and understand, Murayama reveals a jeweled world where ancestors are never far and where truth is as relentless as the tide, and just as stunning.

—Jared Povanda, writer, poet, and free-lance editor

Shareen K. Murayama’s The Mother Who Couldn’t Describe a Thing if She Could explores the myriad containers of life—family, culture, language, body, grief, and geography—with remarkable precision and tenderness. “Sandwiched between sun and Pacific,” these poems inhabit a metaphysical space where the interplay of potentiality and reality meet. An ode to both absences and futures, she wonders, “How can you want what you can no longer see?” A searing commentary, she reflects, “Historically, I am the colonizer and the colonized; violator and infiltrated; but mostly, I carry the weight of shame.” An impassioned call to action, she challenges all failed power structures, “Why aren’t there more types of mothers?” Perhaps most triumphant is her unflinching analysis of negative space, noticing that “Both an island and a daughter are nouns,” each whose “exterior hardens” like the “dinner plate before being plated.” This invitation to sit at Murayama’s bountiful table rich with literary sustenance is nothing short of a blessing contained between two covers.

—Candice M. Kelsey, author of Choose Your Own Poem, finalist for Best Microfiction

Shareen K. Murayama’s The Mother Who Couldn’t Describe a Thing if She Could explores difficult questions about life in gorgeous, poetic prose. Each piece is a snapshot into the forces that pull and push within families and relationships; the varied shades of hope, loss, and human connection; and the question we all grapple with: “did you live your life right?”. Murayama is a master at evoking emotional resonance within a few words. A powerful collection. 

—Dawn Miller, writer and nominated for Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions