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MOTHER!

$19.95

MOTHER! by Summer Stewart is a genre-defying collection of poetry and essays that interrogates what it means to be made—and remade—as a woman. Moving through girlhood, the body, labor, relationships, and motherhood, the book dismantles the idea that identity is self-determined, revealing instead how it is shaped through expectation, silence, and survival.

Blending intimate narrative with sharp cultural analysis, Stewart explores pregnancy, loss, sexuality, and care as lived realities rather than abstract concepts. Her work exposes the invisible systems women sustain—within families, partnerships, and institutions—while examining the psychological and physical costs of carrying what is never fully named.

At once deeply personal and structurally aware, MOTHER! reframes motherhood not as a role, but as a condition that illuminates broader truths about autonomy, power, and inheritance. In doing so, Stewart offers not resolution, but recognition and a path toward self-definition that does not rely on disappearance.

MOTHER! by Summer Stewart is a genre-defying collection of poetry and essays that interrogates what it means to be made—and remade—as a woman. Moving through girlhood, the body, labor, relationships, and motherhood, the book dismantles the idea that identity is self-determined, revealing instead how it is shaped through expectation, silence, and survival.

Blending intimate narrative with sharp cultural analysis, Stewart explores pregnancy, loss, sexuality, and care as lived realities rather than abstract concepts. Her work exposes the invisible systems women sustain—within families, partnerships, and institutions—while examining the psychological and physical costs of carrying what is never fully named.

At once deeply personal and structurally aware, MOTHER! reframes motherhood not as a role, but as a condition that illuminates broader truths about autonomy, power, and inheritance. In doing so, Stewart offers not resolution, but recognition and a path toward self-definition that does not rely on disappearance.

Praise for MOTHER!

Summer Stewart’s Mother! is a box cutter, slashing societal binds that hold motherhood hostage. Refusing sentimentality, Stewart dismantles the assigned feminine roles that govern American domestic life (the endlessly giving mother, the emotionally managerial wife, the self-erasing daughter) and exposes the quiet violence embedded within them. Through a hybrid form of poetry and essays, she interrogates how women are trained to disappear inside family systems while still being expected to hold those systems together.

—Amy Baskin, Night Hag

In Mother!, Summer Stewart gives language, image, and voice to experiences shared by so many women. Finally, through the poems and essays in this collection, our experiences--both traumatic and seemingly mundane--are catalogued and recognized. Emotions and hardships we struggled to name are dissected and detailed in Stewart's clean prose and image-based poetry. She reveals the hidden tolls of partnership, parenthood, and adolescence, illustrating women's struggle for autonomy and individuality in the face of patriarchy, familial expectations, and religiosity. Reading this book made me feel less lonely.

—Darci Schummer, The Ballad of Two Sisters

Summer Stewart's MOTHER! is a ferocious, unapologetic, and creative expression, in poetry and prose, of a woman’s refusal to relinquish the immovable intention of her life—a life she invents herself, with talent, ambition, generosity and sheer will. It is a unique and beautiful literary project.

—Robert Crooke, Across the Endless Night


At its heart, MOTHER! is less about offering neat conclusions and more about mapping the complexities of becoming and unbecoming as a woman, a mother, and an individual. Stewart’s candid, lyrical writing ensures that every reader—whether a parent or not—can find resonance in its exploration of resilience and self-reclamation. It is both intimate and universal, a testament to the power of women telling their own stories.

—Laney Wise

 

Playlist for MOTHER!

 

Things Tucked into MOTHER!

About 50 hand-packed copies were signed and included physical embodiments of the book. For those who received one of these copies, here is what you have:

ORIGAMI PAPER

WILDFLOWER PAPER

PLANT ME

These hearts have wildflower seeds embedded in them. Place the paper on wet soil. Spritz it with water. Cover lightly with soil (1/8” or less). Make sure it is a sunny spot.

 

About SUMMER STEWART

Summer Stewart is an award-winning journalist, poet, nonfiction author, and author mentor dedicated to helping writers produce their best work. As the publisher and managing editor of Unsolicited Press, a small press in the Pacific Northwest, she has guided authors across genres since 2012, specializing in developmental, line, and copy editing. Summer also runs a Substack newsletter, If You Give a Girl a Book, where she shares insights, advice, and reflections on writing and publishing. A multidisciplinary creative, she is passionate about painting, backpacking, beer brewing, gardening, breadmaking, bookbinding, and graphic design. Summer holds a B.A.S. in English & Nutritional Biochemistry as well as an MFA in Poetry and Creative Writing from Portland State University. When not immersed in the literary world, she enjoys homeschooling, savoring black coffee, and indulging her Legend of Zelda fandom.

 

  • Genre: Poetry+Essays

    ISBN: 978-1-963115-43-7

    Publication Date: May 8, 2026