5-Week Series. The poet Kathleen Norris calls mothers the “modern aesetics.” A path of self-sacrifice and extreme nurture often means that mothers bury or have difficulty navigating their own precious emotional needs, creative longings and future dreams. Poetry can be a path to exploring “unacceptable emotions” that mothers may struggle with as well as discover the wonder and beauty available in the ordinary routines of day to day life with children. Mary Ellen Lough-Phillips is a mother of five and has taught poetry therapy as a path to personal discovery and healing to women and mothers for five years. She serves as the poet in residence at the VA Hospital teaching poetry to veterans with PTSD and is nearing her certification in Poetic Medicine.