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Landscape with Headless Mama
These are true border poems, restlessly crossing between the real and the surreal, the loved and the used up, the fertile and the infertile, and the hungry and the sated. Jennifer Givhan is a dangerous poet in all the necessary ways. Connie Voisine
"Landscape with Headless Mama" explores the experiences of becoming and being a mother through the lens of dark fairy tales. Describing the book as a surreal survival guide, Givhan draws from the southwestern desert, incorporating Latin American fine art and folkloric influences. Drawing inspiration from Gloria Anzaldua, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, tattoo artists, and comic book heroes, among other sources, this is a book of intelligence, humor, deep feeling, and, above all, "duende." "
"Landscape with Headless Mama" explores the experiences of becoming and being a mother through the lens of dark fairy tales. Describing the book as a surreal survival guide, Givhan draws from the southwestern desert, incorporating Latin American fine art and folkloric influences. Drawing inspiration from Gloria Anzaldua, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, tattoo artists, and comic book heroes, among other sources, this is a book of intelligence, humor, deep feeling, and, above all, "duende." "
80 pages, Paperback
First published October 3, 2016
2 people are currently reading
223 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Givhan
21Ìýbooks494ÌýfollowersJennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southwestern desert and the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices. She holds a Master’s degree from California State University Fullerton and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College. She is the author of five full-length poetry collections, including Rosa’s Einstein (University of Arizona Press), and the novels Trinity Sight and Jubilee (Blackstone Publishing), which were finalists for the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards. Her newest poetry collection Belly to the Brutal (Wesleyan University Press) and novel River Woman, River Demon (Blackstone Publishing) both draw from her practice of brujerÃa. Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, POETRY, TriQuarterly, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, Salon, and many others. She’s received the Southwest Book Award, New Ohio Review’s Poetry Prize, Phoebe Journal’s Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the Pinch Journal Poetry Prize, and Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Jenn would love to hear from you at jennifergivhan.com and you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for inspiration, prompts, and real talk about the writing life and publishing world.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 21, 2016
A magical poetry collection. "Landscape with Headless Mama" draws from the southwestern desert and many surrealist poets and captures so much wonder. I particularly love these lines:
"She's become gravedigger, that brave girl / bolting by road, by swan, by paper fan." Jennifer Givhan is a beautiful and soulful poet. "Landscape with Headless Mama" is a collection to be savored and devoured whole: let yourself be enchanted.
"She's become gravedigger, that brave girl / bolting by road, by swan, by paper fan." Jennifer Givhan is a beautiful and soulful poet. "Landscape with Headless Mama" is a collection to be savored and devoured whole: let yourself be enchanted.
September 2, 2016
Deeply intimate and personal, just how I like my poetry.
August 25, 2016
The poems in this collection are so intimate and, at times, painful that I often felt as if I were intruding. They cover everything from bad relationships to the death of a loved one. However, as the title suggests, a major theme of the book is motherhood: the narrator as daughter on one end, mother herself on the other. Poems boldly depict pregnancy, miscarriage, and adoption. "Day of the Dead" surprised me again and again with different emotions: regret, sorrow, defiance. "Miscarriage Interpreted Through Animal Science" left me stunned and amazed. The book is filled with poems like that. Powerful poems. Honest poems. The reader suffers with the characters in this collection and is made better for it.
September 24, 2016
Jennifer Givhan's _Landscape_with_Headless_Mama_ is breathtaking. Givhan divides the book into distinct sections: (I) Wide View of Mama, (II) Landscape with Headless Mama, (III) Innerscape (The Miscarrying Artist), (IV) Moonscape as Mama, Or The Artist Births Herself, and (V) Ariel View of Motherhood, Or Mama Rising. Somehow, Givhan takes these disparate parts -- her relationship with her own mother, the art of Remedios Varo, her own struggles with infertility and miscarriage, her children's lives, and weaves a masterpiece. You need to read this collection. NOW.
September 10, 2016
These poems are living things. Throughout Ms. Givhan's brilliant collection, life teems in tea leaves in the shadows of a miscarriage, in the surreally recalled oils of a Remedios Varo painting, in the dancing, musical fungi emanating from a mother's bed-sore flesh. It's the kind of collection that haunts your world with afterimages and echoes long after you've put it down.
October 18, 2016
These surreal poems captivate, pulling us into the desert and not letting us look away from "Mama, / who couldn't keep us from aching, no--who gave us song // &, oh, she gave us song as gesture / for the pain." (from "Nocturne," P 85)
September 2, 2016
Jenn Givhan's poems lay bare the stigmas of motherhood. The scraping pain and disembodiment of shame. And through these trials, she masterfully transcends this suffering and ascribes powerful beauty to the life-giving force within. I read and re-read Jenn's work and feel the strength with every page turn each time.
September 23, 2020
Poetry isn’t something I often grab, it just isn’t a genre I feel I have the taste or skills for comparatively. I picked this up per recommendation from the artisan geek on YouTube. They recommend this collection of poems for their readathon fortnight frights.
However, with Latinx heritage month happening I decided to pick this read up sooner! While I still don’t think I will run to pick up poetry this collection of poems is so incredibly haunting and reflective of this author’s love of their culture and literature. It’s rooted deep in varying reflections of motherhood in a way I think all reads can connect to. If you are looking for poetry to read I recommend you read this!
However, with Latinx heritage month happening I decided to pick this read up sooner! While I still don’t think I will run to pick up poetry this collection of poems is so incredibly haunting and reflective of this author’s love of their culture and literature. It’s rooted deep in varying reflections of motherhood in a way I think all reads can connect to. If you are looking for poetry to read I recommend you read this!
March 1, 2018
has the potential to be better and to be more readible, but its quite a mess
May 13, 2018
second and third sections bang
June 12, 2019
In this spectacular collection, Jenn Givhan weaves together stark images and deeply heartfelt moments with power and grace. A must-read.
May 23, 2023
I struggled to understand a lot of the poems in this book. I think I liked them, but the overall theming of this collection was totally lost on me.
February 22, 2017
Wow! Wow! Wow! A darkly beautiful collection exploring the landscape of motherhood -- having a mother and becoming a mother -- being a child and then having children. Jennifer Givhan gives us an honest yet creative glimpse into the complexities of creating and then keeping a family together. This book is not to be missed.
September 1, 2016
A collection that is at once personal, traumatic, and intimate. Despite my appreciation of Givhan's emotional work, some of the poems fell flat in their telling and I found myself wanting to make revisions to many of the poems' endings. Maybe my love for Sharon Olds' articulation of this kind of "confessional" work has left me a bit jaded.
January 31, 2017
Jenn Givhan has allowed us to enter her inner being. She has shared with us her joy and pain. I was deeply touched by her poetry and look forward to reading more of her work. This is a beautiful book that I will read again.
November 24, 2016
Surreal, intense, necessary poems!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
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