Jenn Thảo Nguyễn

In Dana Ward’s poem A Kentucky of Mothers , he writes, “It is happiness more actual than blood & making good its reality by offering myself to me in this authentic picture”. By embracing and seeing all that nourishes him in his home state of Kentucky as a ‘mother’, Ward transcends the biological limitations of this title. He demonstrates that it is in the act of “making good its reality” that mothering as an action, is its importance. This idea is further emphasized by Loretta J. Ross in the preface to Revolutionary Mothering, where she states, “Mothering, radically defined, is the glad gifting of one’s talents, ideas, intellect, and creativity to the universe without recompense” (RM 10). Between these two statements exists a dynamic of gifting and receiving, which operates beyond the identities to which it is institutionally confined, inviting voluntary participation from any party in the exchange of care from either side. Knott’s fortifies this idea, within Mother Is a Verb, by providing historical evidence of how “sources of knowing” and the transmission of mothering knowledge (mother wit) across generations and cultural contexts have always manifested as an act of “glad-gifting” information in service of the communal prerogative of raising the next generation; a practice historically and necessarily striated throughout communities and networks.

Radical mothering, in all of its verb-al glory, can be seen in Paris is Burning (Livingston, 1990). Where not only is the nominal use of the label “mother” reclaimed to evoke matriarchal order and nurturing authority within ballroom houses, but the act of disseminating “mother wit” is also performed with such enthusiasm and urgency — not just from house-mother to child, but even from ballroom children to spectators (“glad-gifting” of concepts like “vogue” and “realness” to our positioning as the other in the documented world). The hierarchical and competitive structure of ballroom houses nurtures these queer children, creating a safe, self-empowered stage preserved through the mutual act of all parties participating in care and sustenance. It is clear then that this idea of “mother as a verb” places emphasis on care rather than labels and molds, focusing on the accomplishment and labor involved rather than institutional expectations. Equally significant to radical motherhood is radical childhood, exemplified in the children of the ballroom in the film. These children must actively choose to receive the motherly love available in ballroom, to see the matriarch and respect her rules and wisdom. This reception, to me, is charged with the potential to create change, as mothering — as difficult as it is to radically give — can be equally difficult to radically receive. All of this serves the radical act of surviving the children of an institution working against their livelihood, because their livelihood seeds its implosion.