What is a Mom? Book Illustrates Poetically

What is a Mom? Book Illustrates Poetically

            With Mother’s Day arriving tomorrow, my 26th without my own mom, the poetic words of Maya Angelou again come to mind: “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.”

Expand Angelou’s 23-word quote into 62 oversized pages of poems, and rainbow artwork, and you have the newly published book “What is a Woman?” which could instead be titled “What is a Mother?” Indeed, this book was birthed by a high school club/nonprofit organization “Together to Empower” and is there a greater role any mom plays than to empower her children?

Club founder Michelle Qin, a Stanford-bound a senior at Dos Pueblos High who last year was named “1 of America’s Top 10 Youth Volunteers”, recently sent me a copy signed by 40 of its contributing writers and artists. Unsolicited books in my mailbox normally go directly into a box earmarked for The Ventura Friends of the Library, but this one caught my eye – and then captured heart.

“What a book!” is my reaction after perusing “What is a Woman?” From the front cover featuring the vibrant painting titled “Crescendo” by Cheryl Braganza to the back cover with her joyous-and-powerful painting “Women of the World Unite”, the pages between are meant to be viewed and read and savored.

To be sure, the combination of emotional poetry and short essays with amazing artwork makes “What is a Woman?” special. It is like having an art museum’s exclusive exhibit right at your fingertips.

The artwork is captivating: color paintings to black-and-white photos, realism to abstract. Furthermore, the art – and writing, as well – is arranged with deep thought, thus affording a powerful effect. For example, Lea Basile-Lazarus’s “The Silent Voice” showing a white silhouette of a woman with her fist raised in a crowd appears beside Jennifer Casselberry’s vivid portrait titled “Protest” of a solo woman with her arm also lifted high.

Another taste: Photographs of sculptures titled “Lotus” and “Tree” by Francine Kirsch, featuring two woman in yoga poses, appear next to the portrait “Dancer: Strong is the New Pretty” by Kate T. Parker.

Poetry highlights this strength-and-beauty theme on other pages, such as a work from Noël Russel that begins, “I am here because my mother dreamed that I could be” and, after describing an immigrant parent’s difficult life, concludes: “I am here because of a dreamer.”

On the eve of Mother’s Day, the painting “Daughter of August” by Laura Gonzalez on the closing page seems especially poignant. It features, faceless from behind so as to be a universal pairing, a young girl walking hand-in-hand with her mother through a long-grassed field. My interpretation: the girl is being empowered with each step to eventually pursue her dreams beyond the white fence in the distance.

The daughter could as well be a son.

“We are a movement comprised of girls and boys,” Michelle emphasizes, noting there are now club chapters on the east coast and in Vancouver. “Although our main goal is to empower girls, it is equally important to us to emphasize that we all have the power to make a change. After all, our world will only get stronger with girls and boys in the lead, together. That’s why we are called Together to Empower.”

Through the words and paintbrushes, sculptures and camera lenses, eyes and voices of empowered girls in elementary school through women of international fame, this book (available at www.togethertoempower.org) teaches us about true beauty, true strength, true feminism.

“What is a Woman?” answers its own question beautifully as a rainbow.

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   Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …