Mother Said: Poems

by Hal Sirowitz

Before her death in December of 1993, Estelle Sirowitz ladled out the usual maternal advice--from wearing clean underwear (without holes), to believing in God, and keeping limbs inside windows of moving vehicles.  The difference lay not in her delivery but in the her son Hal.

Nearly fourteen years ago Sirowitz began turning his mother's advice into poetry--never showing her exactly what came of her ranting and raving about a ketchup

Deformed Finger
Don't stick your finger in the ketchup bottle,
Mother said. It might get stuck, &
then you'll have to wait for your father
to get home to pull it out. He
won't be happy to find a dirty fingernail
squirming in the ketchup that he's going to use
on his hamburger.  He'll yank it out so hard
that for the rest of your life you won't
be able to wear a ring on that finger.
And if you ever get a girlfriend, &
you hold hands, she's bound to ask you
why one of your fingers is deformed,
& you'll be obligated to tell her how
you didn't listen to your mother, &
insisted on playing with the ketchup bottle,
& she'll get to thinking, he probably won't
listen to me either, & she'll push your hand away.

Since then Sirowitz has become a regular in New York City's downtown poetry scene, was awarded a residency at the MacDowell artists colony,  performed live on MTV's "The Spoken Unplugged," appeared on Public Television's "United States of Poetry" series, and received a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts to continue writing about his mother.  No one, not even Estelle Sirowitz, could have predicted the incredible  allure and success of his dead-pan delivery and dead-on depictions of a mother's words of

from A Bum's Life
You're going to be a bum, Mother said,
if you're not one already, but you'll
soon find out that even a bum
has to work hard convincing people
that he's really poor. When it rains
you can't stand out there holding
an umbrella, & ask for money, but
you have to get wet, because the more
you drip, the more sympathy you'll get....

Like nursery rhymes for adults, the poems included in Mother Said are addictive.  

Read them once and you'll have to read them twice.  Hear Sirowitz read them, and you'll find yourself reciting them to your friends--mimicking as best you can his Queens accent and his dry delivery.   Who knows, you may even find yourself reciting them to your own mother.

Genres: Poetry, Humor, The United States Of America, Fiction, American

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Hal Sirowitz has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship is a 2003-2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. In 2001, Sirowitz was named Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. His poems have been widely anthologized in collections such as Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems and in Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast. He has performed on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged, PBS’s Poetry Heaven, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Garrison Keillor has read Sirowitz’s work on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac. Sirowitz works as a special education teacher for the New York City public schools.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This small book of verse primarily consists of monologues (roughly sonnet-sized) spoken by a Jewish mother--presumably a mother who sounds a lot like Sirowitz's. (A photograph of the poet as baby being held by his adoring mother is the frontispiece of this collection).

There are a few Jewish father monologues too, as well as more than a few short poems about the poet's failed sexual relationships interspersed with the Mother poems, which may seem a little creepy or sadly resonant, depending on your point of view, but which I found to just one more evidence of the book's haphazard organization.

These poems can be both funny and sad, but the voice of the mother, although spot on in its tone, lacks both depth and resonance, and I must admit I wearied of this 128 page collection long before I reached the end.

My advice: don't read more than ten pages or so at a time, and you might enjoy this a bit more than I did.

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A boy's best friend is his mother."
Norman Bates


We've all heard them.

"Always wear clean underwear in case you're in an accident."

And who could forget,

"You'll poke your eye out."


Hal Sirowitz heard them too, and turned them into poetry.

BODY PARTS

Keep your hand inside the railing,
Mother said, when you ride the escalator.
I read once in some out-of-town newspaper
about this boy who got his index finger
chopped off doing what you are doing.
His parents rushed him to the hospital,
but in all their excitement they forgot
to bring the chopped-off finger with them.
They went back to get it, but it was gone.
Probably some cleaning woman threw it away.
The doctors had to sew someone else's finger
to the stump, & I heard that it doesn't match,
that he wears gloves even in the summer.

My mother had a litany of things I should never do: cross your eyes - they might stay that way, make a face - it might stay that way, swim right after eating - oh yeah, cramps, followed by drowning.

She was also a master of laying on the guilt trips.
She'd slip into her "Yes, I am a martyr" voice and say, "Well, if that's what you want to do, I won't stop you." And of course, you didn't DARE do the thing you wanted to do.


MY THOUGHTFUL SON

I can't kill myself, Mother said,
because it's prohibited by Jewish law,
so I'm relying on you to do it for me,
& you've been doing a good job. You
already took a few days off my life
when you got mud on your shoes,
& left a trail all over the house. I had
to get on my knees to scrub the floor,
& I thought to myself, My son is
only trying to be kind, he's shortening
my life so I won't have to worry
about old age, but if he really cared
about me, he'd put an end to me right now.

Actually, that one sounds like my grandma, so I see how my mother got to be the way she was.

One more, just for fun-

NO MORE BIRTHDAYS

Don't swing the umbrella in the store,
Mother said. There are all these glass jars
of spaghetti sauce above your head
that can fall on you, & you can die.
Then you won't be able to go to tonight's party,
or go to the bowling alley tomorrow.
And instead of celebrating your birthday
with soda & cake, we'll have
anniversaries of your death with tea
& crackers. And your father & I won't
be able to eat spaghetti anymore, because
the marinara sauce will remind us of you.

And yes, there is one called POKED-OUT EYE.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

[belisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

çok boş bir kitap

[Momina M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Min døde gullfisk
"Jeg ønsket meg en alligator som kjæledyr.
Men foreldrene mine ga meg en gullfisk.
Da den døde, skylte min mor den ned i toalettet.
Hun sa at en katt kom til å grave den opp
og spise den hvis vi begravde den i bakgården.
Jeg var sint på min far fordi han gikk
på do ti minutter etter begravelsen.
Han hadde ingen respekt for den døde."

[Reetta Saine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aaah. Luin näitä ääneen lapsille. Tunnistivat :p.
Suositus kaikille, jotka "eivät ymmärrä runoutta" ja niille, jotka ymmärtävät erittäin mustaa huumoria.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the humor--I needed this during this pandemic.

[Mina M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Denne var artig. Veldig tragikomisk. Fikk litt «det er farlig å gå med våte joggesko»-vibber.

[Liridona · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the great features of poetry collections is that you usually can finish them in one sitting. I love-love-loooved this! So sweet and funny! It's the first time poetry has really made me laugh ouy LOUD.

[Mays · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was like hearing my mom. Laughed a lot.

[Gabriella · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a couple of poems in this book that gave a the impression of a sort of sense of entitlement when it comes to women - Souvenirs and Wasting Time, for instance. I don't believe "friendzone" was part of the lexicon when this book came out, but if it had been I wouldn't have been surprised to see it pop up somewhere in this book.

Aside from that - not bad. Focused on the relationship between a Jewish man and his parents (specifically his mother), with some humorous bits.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

These poems are totally effective. They make their point, they have that comic sense of sadness underneath, you can read one and get its point and move on. Not sure any of these are going to haunt me, though, and wake me up in the middle of the night.

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

very funny poems. Some a little naughty.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Omsorgsfull kjærlighet levert i mer eller mindre velmenende råd.

[LisBeth Thoresen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vet ikke helt hva som skjedde her. Men jeg lo en hel del. Ganske gæærn hu mora!

[Marthe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A guidebook gaslighting, manipulation and guilt tripping. Denne boka balanserte ikke like mye humor og negativitet. Så det ble litt unødvendig tung til tider. Men fortsatt en lettlest ironisk bok

[Amelia · Rating 2 out of 5]

the poems about the mom— good !
the poems about using a magnifying glass to make his penis bigger — bad !

[Liz “Booked” up for the year! · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Being my first book or poetry it wasn’t bad. Some funny bits others were eh.

[Jon Ekeland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morsomme dikt. Takk for anbefalingen mamma ❤️

[Trine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book in a translation to Norwegian borrowed from a Norwegian friend. The translator is the Norwegian author Erlend Loe who has a lot in common with Sirowitz regarding style even though Loe writes novels.

At first, you laugh. Then you laugh harder. But gradually, the smile and laughter fades....is it funny, or is it tragic? It is both, really (just like many of Loe's own books).

Basically the book is a series of poems on conversations between the poet and his mother - or rather, injunctions from his mother, and they are getting more and more bizarre. It also covers conversations with his father and poems about the poet's not very succesfull attempts at relationships with various girls.

A jewish friend of mine said that it is a very much to the point characteristics of a jewish mum and a dysfunctional family. She, her teenage daughter and her (not jewish) boyfriend all found the book extremely funny.

[Asbah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skaff deg en jobb

Øynene dine er røde, sa Mor.
Du har antakelig tatt stoffer igjen.
Neste gang du gjør det, bør du gi
noen til meg. Jeg trenger sovepiller.
Jeg har fått søvnproblemer fordi
jeg bekymrer meg for deg.
Du er den eneste i klassen din
som ikke jobber i sommer. Når jeg møter
mødrene til vennene dine, spør de meg
hva du gjør, & når jeg sier at du leser,
spør de meg hvorfor du ikke kan gjøre det
om kvelden, etter å ha jobbet om dagen.
Du er ikke fornøyd med å
bare være en taper, men må sitte på rommet ditt
hele dagen og lese deg til hvordan du kan bli en bedre en.

[Kasandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really, really funny. These are concise, and vivid, and often hilarious. I wanted to give this 4 stars, but unfortunately, as performance poets often do, these poems are more like chopped-up prose; they're conversational narratives, like small stories, so there's not a lot of "poetry" going on. These read more like small stand-up routines. That said, this is worth reading, and I'll keep an eye out for more of his work.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another humorous collection of straight-forward poetry by Sirowitz. It's dark humor,
often the most honest and believable kind, considering the world in which we live. Sirowitz's poetry is refresingly fun and interesting to read, and reminds us that there are as many, maybe more varieties of poetry as there are of prose.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Piss-yourself-funny the first time, especially if you're under the influence. Multi-reads are not so funny, especially when sober.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

He's funny, but eventually tiresome. It's the same joke (um, I mean, the same poem) over and over again.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old-fashioned, self-hating Jewish humor packaged as not-terrible poems. The poems aren't bad! The jokes are bad.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poor guy.