from POWER POINT, winner of the 2025 National Press Women Communications Prize
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'100% Mom' renders real-world statistics on maternal mortality, unpaid labor, and workforce inequality into letters through charts created in Microsoft PowerPoint. The visual staging of the poem echoes a scientific paper, with boxed and numbered text explicating the data. The simple, almost childlike rhyme scheme and musicality of the text is juxtaposed with the stark statistics. The "Pepto-bismol" pink of the large word MOM provides additional dissonance with the subject matter, calling attention to the perceived acceptance of a chilling status quo.
100% MOM won first place in the creative verse single poem category of the 2025 National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest and was nominated for Best of the Net. It was first published in Whale Road Review.
From POWER POINT (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024).
The underlying datasets behind the poem. Sort, compare, and explore the numbers directly.
| Country | Deaths per 100,000 live births | Relative rate |
|---|---|---|
| Norway | 2 | |
| Netherlands | 3 | |
| Germany | 4 | |
| Canada | 8 | |
| France | 8 | |
| United Kingdom | 10 | |
| United States | 24 |
| Category | Percentage | |
|---|---|---|
| Preventable | 84% | |
| Not preventable | 16% |
Source: "Most pregnancy-related deaths are preventable," Hear Her Campaign, CDC, 2022.
| Race / Ethnicity | Deaths per 100,000 live births | Relative rate |
|---|---|---|
| Hispanic | 18.2 | |
| White | 19.1 | |
| Black | 55.3 |
Source: CDC, NCHS, "Life Stages and Populations by Sex," 2020 data.
| Category | % Women | % Men | Women's share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unpaid Labor Hours | 75% | 25% | |
| Low-wage Workers | 60% | 40% | |
| Senior Management | 28% | 72% |
Source: ILO, "Women Work More, But are Still Paid Less"; UN, "The World's Women 2020 Trends and Statistics".
Also on gender and statistics: #ME TOO, a Point of Consensus →