Birth of a Daughter (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781952326363)

-Sarah Cannon, author of The Shame of Losing

In Birth of a Daughter, Samantha Kolber deftly reveals the private world of pregnancy and birth-the middle of the night and light of day worries about safety, connection, and intimacy, weighing what shifts, writing, "I am marked. I am one becoming two, becoming one / again...my body deceives me." Indeed, these poems are brave in their accounting of the pregnant, birthing body, the realities of mothering, and the territory we enter-"oh, these worlds we are now / you and I." Dailiness and milestones merge here, bringing us on a journey that is part emotional travelogue, part wonder, part weighing of generations and of our times, and part arrival at the precise awareness that, "I am witness. I am mother." Kolber's voice is an important one, honoring what is often kept hidden.

- Kerrin McCadden, author of Keep This to Yourself

In her startling, beautiful new collection, Birth of a Daughter, Samantha Kolber pulls us into the time-out-of-time experience of pregnancy and motherhood. Alert to the expanded "porous" boundaries of both body and self, Kolber writes with intimate, visceral authority: "I am / clearly awake." Like salt-water pearls, these raw, gorgeous poems glow, capturing the wild internal variations felt just holding a new child or toddler in your arms, exhausted and exhilarated. "I am me plus and minus the cells expunged to create you, daughter," Kolber writes, ever-attuned to the possibility of artistic sublimation to the hunger of her infant daughter. This collection affirms Kolber's territorial claim to the mother-as-artist: "sucking what light I make / into the core of you / oh, these worlds we are now."

- Megan Buchanan, author of Clothesline Religion

Author: Samantha Kolber
ISBN-10: 1952326362
ISBN-13: 9781952326363
Publisher: Kelsay Books
Language: English
Published: 08/17/2020
Pages: 42
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.17lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.10d