After watching my mother angrily struggle to cross a parking lot with a walker, I began writing about how my mother moved through life when younger. Poem after poem emerged over the course of the next 8 years in a writing process that I eventually shared with my mother in her last weeks of life. The Mother Poems is an epic tale of two heroines engaged in battle; a love saga of a dance that began before birth; a memoir, showing how, despite conflict and separation, my mother and I remained bonded through a love of writing; a testament to the healing and forgiveness that writing about relationships gives, when we dig deep and speak openly about our lives. Please come and support me as I share the complex, difficult but also redemptive story of my relationship with my mother. If you can, bring your own mother and/or your daughter with you to this reading. These poems are the most challenging and necessary writings of my life. Sharing them in public will be difficult. Your presence will help me do so. I trust that this sharing will encourage you to write about your own family relationships. Thanks for your support, as these poems were being written, and at the book launch.