Customer Reviews

The Prodigal Son's Mother

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Praise for The Prodigal Son's Mother by Mary Rose Betten :



You can't just read this parable quietly to yourself. It's too mythic. What you have to do is gather some people and read it--no, perform it --out loud in front of God and everybody, then you'll get it. It's a tale of twists and turns and it takes a community to figure it out. And some solitary prayer to get what it's saying to you. Dig in. A treasure awaits you.

Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ
author of Dead Man Walking

Here are the Jacket Blurbs from this inspiring chapbook from the award-winning actress, playwright, and writer Mary Rose Betten:

Mary Rose Betten's chapbook collection, The Prodigal Son's Mother, is a fully-realized reminder that there is always more than one story woven into the most familiar narratives. Here, the silent but conflicted mother recounts the Biblical tale of the son who tore apart a family, only to be forgiven. As Muriel Rukeyser so powerfully announced, when a woman tells her story, the world splits open. So it is in this poem--for more than one person, tragedy is part of the homecoming.


--Eloise Klein Healy



Like all of Mary Rose Betten's work, The Prodigal Son's Mother, is insightful, eloquent, surprising and wise. We are lucky to have her, and her poetry.


--David Starkey, Santa Barbara poet laureate


There's a natural cinematic narrative, a dramatic recreation of what we see unfold in our mind's eye as we read Mary Rose Betten's chapbook-length story-like poem, The Prodigal Son's Mother. Mythical, Biblical, this persona poem comes alive as we wake with the speaker's voice "bargaining with the darkness." Betten's diction, "a brush fire through the wheat," finally arrives at a place of ancient reverie: this book reminds us of Rilke's belief that "poetry is the natural prayer of the human soul."


--Elena Karina Byrne

This is a touching, loving, and insightful retell of the famous parable. Mary Rose has such keen awareness of emotional tension and a gift with words that you end this tale feeling somehow you know these characters. Thank you for another book that goes in my treasured bookcase of books to pull down and read again and again.

Sally Franz
Author: "Scrambled Leggs...A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey"