MAMA TRIED, Poetry by B. Elizabeth Beck

Publication Date: April 30, 2022

Paperback, 48 pages

ISBN: 978-1-956782-07-3

$18.50 retail, $14.00 from publisher

“If I do not write today / I will never write another poem” – let us be grateful, then, that B. Elizabeth Beck wrote that day, and many others, resulting in the poems that make up her new chapbook, Mama Tried. And try she does, this mother and teacher. Perhaps the best word to describe this collection is fierce – both the poems and the poet. She writes with passion, and compassion, for her students, “Lost casualties / of a public education that speaks /about serving but never actually does / anything beyond talking”—children dealing with poverty and shattered homes and, for some, the constant threat of deportation, struggling for an education in the midst of active shooter drills and a society that views them as marginal. And as the mother of a child with a blood disorder, a child she admonishes to “Quit growing up so fast”, Beck also confronts the long, often blind journey of parenting, “a series / of choices. Where / is that handbook I / received when you / were born?” In a way, she creates a handbook here, reminding us all of the most important lesson: “don’t give up / you matter.”

Praise for B. Elizabeth Beck & Mama Tried

Mama Tried reports again and again on the rage and wonder, the grief and small triumphs of the students in B. Elizabeth Beck's classrooms. With a mother’s instinct to keep everyone safe, Beck navigates a world of lockdowns and ICE, of hunger and tears with whatever it takes to shepherd her charges to a safe place. She documents the tragic failings of our political divisions, of our educational bureaucracy, of our own insufficiencies as parents, in lines we cannot turn from. In these clear-eyed poems we witness how with only the simple tools of “gold stars, fire drills, crayons, lesson plans, desks” a necessary magic unfolds.

—Lynnell Edwards, author of This Great Green Valley & others

We all should have been so lucky to have had the speaker in Mama Tried as our teacher, with her desire to keep all the children of the world safe and fed, and at the same time to be a caring mother for her own child. The poems in this collection slowly reveal the burden of understanding the difficulties faced by underprivileged children in public schools and their devoted teacher's reaction. “Mother, teacher, woman // who collapsed, howling / screaming pain in empathy”, someone who wakes up early to cook for her students, makes sure they have the right prescription glasses. Someone who suffers the unimaginable loss of students to suicide and stray bullets. The world needs more teachers “Unwilling / to throw up [their] hands”. And we need this book. I am thankful for B. Elizabeth Beck’s brave and heartbreaking poems.

—Katerina Stoykova, author of The Porcupine of Mind & others

About the Author

B. ELIZABETH BECK is a poet who writes fiction. She is a hybrid author of seven books. The Summer Tour Trilogy includes Summer Tour (KDP 2020), World Gone Mad (KDP 2021), and Under the Elm (KDP 2022). Her books of poetry are Painted Daydreams: Collection of Ekphrastic Poems (Accents Publishing 2019), insignificant (Evening Street Press 2013), and Interiors (Finishing Line Press 2013). She achieved her B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati and her M.Ed. from Xavier University. She is an award-winning English and Art History teacher. During her time at Withrow High School, she founded The Tracks literary magazine. She is the proud recipient of an Artist Enrichment Grant through the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She founded The Teen Howl Poetry Series and the award-winning Leestown OUTLOUD Poets. In between, Elizabeth likes to make art, cook, and listen to music. Visit her online at elizbeck.com