Letters, stories, and poems: literary bonds between mothers and children

Charles Baudelaire , the influential French "cursed poet," lost his father at the age of six. His mother remarried, a situation he found unwelcome, although he nevertheless maintained a strong correspondence with her for a long period, between 1839 and 1866, during his writing studies. While his bohemian lifestyle was controlled by a family tutor, his expenses remained borne of debt and financial strife. These anxieties and requests for money are some of the themes present in the book Letters to his Mother (Blatt & Ríos), but also displays of love for her and confidence in the transcendence of his poetic work. The volume reproduces one hundred and forty of these letters , selected, translated, and annotated from the poet's correspondence. The translation was by Walter Romero, who also wrote the prologue and notes.

“I sold to the Hetzel house The Flowers of Evil for five years, expanded third edition, and The Spleen of Paris for another five, at six hundred francs per volume and a print run of two thousand copies. There will be at least five editions of each in five years,” Baudelaire told his mother in one of his letters.

“The Spleen of Paris is unfinished, and it wasn't even delivered on time. I only need about two weeks more to finish it, but it will be intense work. I made the mistake of slacking off the work I was doing. But I'm very happy with every part of it now. It will be a unique book,” he explains, and then tells him that the Lévy publishing house has bought new volumes “to expand the Edgar Poe collection,” but that they hadn't yet sold any more of Les Paradis Artificiels , one of his key titles .

Amidst reproaches and evidence of a troubled relationship between the two— “My dear mother, I absolutely must write to you, otherwise you’d think there was something fishy about it. Your imagination is absurd. The explanation is much simpler. My poems have been discontinued (the newspaper editor told me) because they were boring everyone”—the celebrated poet interspersed displays of affection for the woman who gave him life: “ My dear mother, my good mother, I don’t know what to say to you, and yet there are so many things I want to tell you . For now, I’m really looking forward to seeing you.”

Another example: “After all, maybe it was a good thing that I got involved with strangers; it's a way of loving my mother more.” In some farewells, he also expressed this deep feeling for her : “Never stop writing to me; I love your letters. In my sadness, I find comfort in knowing that my good mother's love grows within me; and so it should always be (…) I give you a kiss, and in my next letter I will send you some flowers as exceptional as you have never seen in your life.”

A baby embarks on a journey through his mother's body: a hill to climb, a world to explore. "Mama Tambor" (Pípala, Adriana Hidalgo Editora) offers a poetic journey through the nooks and crannies of a mother's physiognomy, seen through the eyes of her young son, newly arrived in this world of enchantments and everyday adventures.

“Mommy’s neck/ is a perfect hiding place/ There I curl up/ when I close my eyes,” reads the white letters against an immense blue sky against which the figures of birds are outlined in an even darker blue, companions of another one that perches on the shoulder of the mother who is holding her sleeping baby. The illustration, like all the others in the book, is by Marine Schneider, a Belgian creator who draws for books for children and adults. The texts in Mama Tambor are by the French writer Pauline Delabroy-Allard, a finalist for the Prix Gouncourt with her novel I Will Talk About Sarah; considered the heir to Marguerite Duras, Patrick Modiano and Annie Ernaux based on her book The Daughter , in which she carries out a striking investigation into life and literature .

“Mommy’s hairs/ are little black, shiny bugs/ They move when she dances/ They tremble when she gets angry,” we read this time in black letters on an illustration with a light background, with a baby’s hands that seem to want to weave with their small fingers tangled in the mother’s hair, which is mixed with colorful flowers, butterflies and a dragonfly.

A cardboard cutout book that tenderly explores this strong, mutually recognizable bond , filled with wonder at the magical and tranquility at the simplicity of everyday life. Its author, as often detailed in her biographical details, was a single mother at the age of 22.

“ I don't know what my mother was like at work. I have a hard time imagining or guessing. She claimed she 'hated' her job. 'Everyone hates their job, Bridge,' she used to tell me. 'Everyone.' So begins My Ghosts (Sixth Floor), a novel by British author Gwendoline Riley , known for exploring family relationships and dynamics in her books, capturing even the rawest emotions. The narrator, Bridge, speaks of her mother, Helen, who separated from her father when she was very young, as a great enigma. The two get together annually to celebrate their birthdays, which fall in the same month.

Between one encounter and the next, messages follow one another, which the daughter transcribes in her story. In earlier times, she says, her mother used to email her birthday or Christmas cards, usually with cartoon animals "which she would later ridicule in the message," such as one time she sent a puppy with the inscription "vomit." Humor, irony, and even, at times, sarcasm, accompany this young woman's account, which describes her mother and her relationship with her without the need for diplomacy or complacent speeches.

“The unhappy forays she'd made into the world outside of work played a role in the same work: her brief membership in an organization called the IVC, for example, which was 'a social club for graduates and professionals.' She endured two outings with them and then canceled her membership,” Bridge says at one point about her mother, also speaking of her membership in the Wine Club and her outings to see jazz. The young woman tries to understand why the bond between them, which, paradoxically and as so often happens, becomes more tender and close when her health begins to fail, never quite develops .

“A man throws his mother's ashes into the sea, walks as if he wants to draw a map of the city, sits in a bar, remembers,” describes Mercedes Alonso on the back cover of Sobre un cuerpo ausente (La flor azul) by Mar del Plata writer Juan Bautista Duizeide . She summarizes in a few lines what happens in the novel's first pages.

“I am inconsolably convinced of the dissolution and oblivion that await us. There will never be anyone anywhere, ever again, who will call me Toti, nor will I ever again taste the strudel prepared by your hands,” says the narrator of a story about a son, a mother, and Argentina during the last military dictatorship, as seen by a family connected to the Navy.

The mother, for her part, writes desperate love letters and awaits, each time, her son's return from the island where he spends his weeks, between military duties and learning about life.

A merchant marine pilot, Duizeide sailed across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea. He then sailed along Argentina's entire Atlantic coast.

In " About an Absent Body," navigational terms coexist with quotes from contemporary rock lyrics; phrases from authors such as Homer and Borges, and a poem by Alfonsina Storni, honored at a monument in the author's hometown. "To whom you loved so much," the narrator says before transcribing the poem he dedicates to his mother, in that opening ceremony of the book: "Tell me, oh dead, who laid you one day / Thus lying beside the resounding sea? / Did whoever it was understand that the dead / Are already weary of the path of the birds / And have placed you very close to the waves / So that you may feel the hoarse / Roar that terrifies from the blue sea?"

Letters to His Mother by Charles Baudelaire (Blatt & Ríos); Mother Drum by Pauline Delabroy-Allard (Pípala); My Ghosts by Gwendoline Riley (Sexto piso); and On an Absent Body by Juan Bautista Duizeide (La flor azul).