SOLAR MOTHER
motherlore thread #1
Motherlore Thread #1 — SOLAR MOTHER
POETRY
Solar Mother by Dorothee Sophie Royal I named you after a body of light because that’s who you are to me become vessel shining not in gentle summer sun but crowned a piercing fire that melts snow and illusion coaxes seeds to break pulls water from skin and lake lifts stems to meet the wind of life. 𓍯 Dorothee Sophie Royal is a writer, poet and mother based in Berlin. She is Writer-in-Residence at Motherlore Magazine (2026) where she is completing her debut poetry chapbook.
Little Star(ling) by Heather Brown Barrett giving birth is the sun splitting the breast- bone open like a butterfly unfurls its sails like a ripened cantaloupe from which I scoop the sweetest winged bird— we swallow the grave and cinder horizon 𓍯 Heather Brown Barrett is an award-winning poet in southeastern Virginia. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, Motherlore Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, formidable Woman sanctuary, OyeDrum, orangepeel, and elsewhere. She’s the author of Water in Every Room (Kelsay Books, 2025), a collection of poems embodying the fluctuations of emotion and form in new motherhood.
sunrise applause by Skyler Larrimore on any old Tuesday you slowly drift out of slumber limbs stretched long mouth in a pout rolling side to side knocking your big head against papá and I as you push up to a wobbly seat gazing upon the room green walls tangled sheets light peeking from behind the curtain illuminates books and toys scattered an empty crib you triumphantly avoided three humans two cats one bed you exuberantly clap so pleased by it all why did we ever stop applauding to greet the day? this sunrise spent snuggled a gift worth celebrating 𓍯 Skyler Larrimore is a lifelong Chicagoan, advocate, artist and now mother. She's always noticing—and trying to create—beauty, connection, and wonder. Catch her playing with poems on motherhood and the wild and precious moments that shape a life.
Year 36: The Summer Solstice by Rose Kuhl Here, in the orchard among a living legacy of children, bees, and peach trees I am sagging with abundance. Surrounded by plenty an interlude between mother and crone envelopes me. The fecundity of my body, my garden, the soil of my heart reassures me. The seeds I buried have bloomed and the frost-tinged rose hips of autumn will come sweetly. 𓍯 Rose Kuhl is a homeschooling mother, herbalist and ritual drum healer. She is learning to bloom again after a long winter.
PROSE / PROSE-POETRY
Home Birth by Lucinda Weston I have careened through the stars/ I have entered dying supernovas and pulled out souls/ I have entertained empresses inside my own stomach/ I have rolled them through a lifetime and sang them boring songs/ I have wined and dined with no wine/ I have sworn upon the beak of gas and air/ I have swung my hips with all the force akin to meteor strikes/ I have seen the universe spin past me: galaxies exponential/ I have looped around the moon and sat upon her darkside so to insult midwives/ I have screamed at paramedics/ I have lain milk upon the Milky Way and eaten pizza for breakfast. That is all to say I have given birth to my daughters in my kitchen. 𓍯 Lucinda Weston is a mother and writer living in Manchester. When not raising children, Lucinda has dedicated this year to be the year of writing poetry and redrafting her feminist fantasy novel.
A Mother’s Rage by Suzie Rees The joy and energy of midsummer: elderflowers are perfect white on the trees, and in my garden, the old rambling roses fill the warm air with their glorious scent. I’ve never seen so many. Foxgloves and delphiniums sway gently in the breeze. It’s late but I don’t want to sleep; once my daughter’s in bed I escape to the garden to absorb the evening sunlight. This is the solar mother at the peak of her power, and nature responding. I feel wild: I want to dance, and sing, and celebrate the magic of this solstice time. The next day we go to the river, with strawberry cake and sandwiches, and celebrate midsummer’s day together. We wade into the water, trying not to lose our shoes, and feel a closeness to each other and to nature. The sun holds us with her calm and warming energy. Happiness and peace. But now, just a few days later, things have changed. We’ve tipped too far. Extreme heat and red weather warnings — a risk to life. The heat is oppressive and heavy, and builds through the day. My daughter comes home from school sweaty and exhausted, upset that they haven’t been allowed to play outside. She’s in tears three times within an hour and so am I. The relief of a cool evening never comes. This feels wrong, sick and alien, terrifying. I know we’re lucky where I live — many across the world have experienced climate disasters for years, those who are the least to blame. In my garden, the petals drop from every single rose. The solar mother is no longer calm, she’s angry, out of control, showing her rage. I know that feeling: ‘mum rage’. Deeply buried, shameful anger which cannot be repressed anymore: you’re alone, trying your best, begging for help, yet no-one comes. Our mother sun has to watch, powerless, while we trash her beautiful world, and pollute the precious atmosphere that she relies on for balance and support. Perhaps through rage she is reclaiming her power. I feel anger too: how can I mother through this? Send my child out into this world knowing what’s to come? Soon, 40 degrees celsius will be a usual summer. In just the seven years since I gave birth, flooding, once rare, has become the norm for autumn — I remember the first time I saw nightmarish, raging torrents running through the city, trapped in a car with my little baby and dog. Now it’s every year. We’ve known for so long what is happening: I was shocked and upset when we learnt about the ‘greenhouse effect’ in my second year of infant school, 1994. Three decades later, the concentration of money and power means nothing has changed. Of course she’s angry. 𓍯 Suzie Rees lives in a small village in Derbyshire, UK with her husband, seven-year-old daughter and dog. In her day job she’s a fundraising consultant for charities and spends her spare time exploring the woods, growing veg on her allotment, running, foraging and writing.
𓍊𓋼𓍊
NEXT CALL
August’s Motherlore Thread — WEED MOTHER
Deadline: August 16th
Call for submissions on or around the theme of “weed mother”:
𓍯 tiny book reviews — ca. 500 words
𓍯 poetry/lists — ca. 25 lines
𓍯 prose/prose poetry (both fiction & non-fiction) — ca. 500 words
𓍯 digital content, any size/length (audio, video, images)
Send work, including a 2-3 line bio & social links, to motherloremagazine@gmail.com as i) a .doc/.docx file (no pdfs please! no Google Drive links, etc.!), ii) .jpg/.png file, or iii) video/audio link or file (please note that, if selected, videos and audio files will need to shared with me directly or uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo so that I can embed them into the post)
Happy creating x
𓍊𓋼𓍊
And Notre Dame is Burning by Miriam Robinson
A Library of Light by Danielle Vogel
Reproduction by Louisa Hall
A Line Above the Sky by Helen Mort
Inferno by Catherine Cho
Uprooting by Marchelle Farrell
𓍊𓋼𓍊
WRITING PROMPT
Write about the sun-threads of you that you can find in your child, the light of you that they reflect back, the way their shine blinds you if you stare too long.
𓍊𓋼𓍊
MOTHER/CARE/WRITE
🀦 Mother Mother Mother magazine call for visual submissions // theme: holding, deadline July 26th
🀦 Women Poets’ Network // UK-based poetry community with online events, £25+ per year (all events are then free with subscription)
🀦 M/Others Who Make Monthly Online Peer Support // 21st July 2026 10:00AM BST, free for M/Others Who Make members, £10 for non-members
🀦 Writing Shamelessly with Alice Kinsella // August 13th, 11am-1pm BST, €40
🀦 Picturing Mothers with Joanna Wolfarth // Thursday 17th September 2026 or Saturday 26th September 2026, £45+ (free places available)
🀦 HerStry Critique Groups (10 Weeks) (6 Weeks)// September, various dates, $127+
🀦 ‘The Body of Work’ with Victoria Adukwei Bulley // Saturday 14 November 2026, 1–4pm GMT, £30 (or recording for £15)
So many brilliant pieces, I loved reading them all 🌤️ xx
A joy to be part of this luminous thread of motherhood, rage, beauty and power.