Birthroot

In this noteworthy debut collection, Lisa Marie Oliver gives us startling, deeply moving poems of new motherhood. Enduring sleep deprivation’s disassembling madness, she confesses: “I knew motherhood / would break my body, but not / my brain,” making it so eerily moonlike that it “waxes and wanes.” Vigilant, achingly tender, this new mother sometimes sees herself as a besotted, devoted monster: “Medusa bleeding a little // Medusa leaking milk // ...Medusa eager for sun...always hungry...still sore.” Oliver—whose newborn fills her breath with “salt-scent, / cloud, common myrtle”—gives us a remarkable gift. Praise be for these lyric poems that so powerfully convey childbirth’s transfiguring experience.

—Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita