num_pages: 128
description: Before her death in December of 1993, Estelle Sirowitz ladled out the usual maternal advice--from wearing clean underwear (without holes), to believing in God, and keeping limbs inside windows of moving vehicles.  The difference lay not in her delivery but in the her son Hal.Nearly fourteen years ago Sirowitz began turning his mother's advice into poetry--never showing her exactly what came of her ranting and raving about a ketchup Deformed FingerDon't stick your finger in the ketchup bottle,Mother said. It might get stuck, &amp;then you'll have to wait for your fatherto get home to pull it out. Hewon't be happy to find a dirty fingernailsquirming in the ketchup that he's going to useon his hamburger.  He'll yank it out so hardthat for the rest of your life you won'tbe able to wear a ring on that finger.And if you ever get a girlfriend, &amp;you hold hands, she's bound to ask youwhy one of your fingers is deformed,&amp; you'll be obligated to tell her howyou didn't listen to your mother, &amp;insisted on playing with the ketchup bottle,&amp; she'll get to thinking, he probably won'tlisten to me either, &amp; she'll push your hand away.Since then Sirowitz has become a regular in New York City's downtown poetry scene, was awarded a residency at the MacDowell artists colony,  performed live on MTV's "The Spoken Unplugged," appeared on Public Television's "United States of Poetry" series, and received a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts to continue writing about his mother.  No one, not even Estelle Sirowitz, could have predicted the incredible  allure and success of his dead-pan delivery and dead-on depictions of a mother's words of from A Bum's LifeYou're going to be a bum, Mother said,if you're not one already, but you'llsoon find out that even a bumhas to work hard convincing peoplethat he's really poor. When it rainsyou can't stand out there holdingan umbrella, &amp; ask for money, butyou have to get wet, because the moreyou drip, the more sympathy you'll get....Like nursery rhymes for adults, the poems included in Mother Said are addictive.  Read them once and you'll have to read them twice.  Hear Sirowitz read them, and you'll find yourself reciting them to your friends--mimicking as best you can his Queens accent and his dry delivery.   Who knows, you may even find yourself reciting them to your own mother.
language: English
title: Mother Said: Poems
titlecomplete: Mother Said: Poems
genres: American, Poetry, Fiction, Humor
ratings_count: 314
publisher: Crown