Mouth Full of Seeds

Marcela Sulak’ s Mouth Full of Seeds is a fierce and tender hybrid memoir that is wholly unique to Sulak’ s lived experiences as an academic, single mother, farmer’ s daughter, translator, convert to Judaism, native of Texas, and immigrant to Israel. Weaving together lyric essays and poems, Sulak addresses big themes— time, feminism, motherhood, transformation, violence, spirituality, immigration, sense of place, and language itself— while rooting her poems in the corporeal and earthly details of childbirth, divorce, gardening, fairy tales, and even potatoes. “ I can love almost anything,” writes Sulak in “ Dear Honeysuckled, Dear Fire Department,” and we believe her as she renders the particulars of her worlds with riveting and exacting grace--Erika Meitner

Marcela Sulak’ s five Black Lawrence Press titles include The Fault (2024), National Jewish Book Awards finalist, City of Sky Papers (2021), lyric memoir Mouth Full of Seeds (2020), Decency (2015), and Immigrant (2010). She’ s co-edited the Rose-Metal Press title Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres. Sulak’ s translations from the Czech, French, and Hebrew have been recognized by PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. Sulak is managing editor of The Ilanot Review, and directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University, where she is Associate Professor of American Literature.