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klucy's review
3.0
As a midwife and a homebirth mama myself, I know how deeply important birth is to mom's, babies, families. Though I respect the telling of their stories by these poets/writers/mamas, the book does not acknowledge that homebirth is, for many women, an educational and financial privilege, and that idealization of homebirth, oversimplification of the politics of birth and judgement of choice of birthplace/medications/provider/etc. does not further their cause or promote the normalization of homebirth. Safe homebirth with well-established hospital transport if needed should be an option for all women. I wish this book could have painted more complex perspectives on these issues.
margaret_adams's review
4.0
This book read like a transcript of a conversation between two women--prose-poems of late-night emails back and forth, maybe, but with the to's and from's and date-stamp's deleted. I loved it for the structure of the writing as much as for the content. You don't necessarily have to be a birth junkie AND an unusual-narrative-structure junkie to love this book, but you probably ought to be one or the other.
pyrrhicspondee's review
3.0
I read this book in two days. If I didn't already have a toddler, it would have been one. Lots of good stuff about the fucked up maternity care system in America. Good arguments for home birth and doulas and midwives. Scary statistics about c-sections and unnecessary interventions. It was like reading a conversation about The Business of Being Born.
And holy cow did I cry at the end. Spoiler alert! The Maine home birth ends in stillbirth. Not the thing to read while pregnant and hormonal. And I like these women. No one wants to read about a stillbirth. Too fucking sad.
But was it a "poemic"? No. Was it poetic? No. Was it really filled with rage? No. The italicized sections in verse (I'm not sure I want to call them poems, but they had line breaks, so I can legitimately call them verse) were BAD. Like, BAD BAD BAD. I can't believe they were allowed to stay in the book.
Arielle Greenberg edited Gurlesque, which I adored, and I wish this book had more of the gurlesque asthetic. Which is to say, I wish it had more of the grotesque and the girly and the surreal, and not just crap about being "witchy" and the purity of birth and how empowering it is. Whatever. And I am very sympathetic to this argument.
So, as non-fiction: probably four or five stars. As poetry, it was a stinker.
Still, if you are uninitiated in the world of birth politics and feminist takes on maternity care, this would be an excellent place to get your feet wet.
And holy cow did I cry at the end. Spoiler alert! The Maine home birth ends in stillbirth. Not the thing to read while pregnant and hormonal. And I like these women. No one wants to read about a stillbirth. Too fucking sad.
But was it a "poemic"? No. Was it poetic? No. Was it really filled with rage? No. The italicized sections in verse (I'm not sure I want to call them poems, but they had line breaks, so I can legitimately call them verse) were BAD. Like, BAD BAD BAD. I can't believe they were allowed to stay in the book.
Arielle Greenberg edited Gurlesque, which I adored, and I wish this book had more of the gurlesque asthetic. Which is to say, I wish it had more of the grotesque and the girly and the surreal, and not just crap about being "witchy" and the purity of birth and how empowering it is. Whatever. And I am very sympathetic to this argument.
So, as non-fiction: probably four or five stars. As poetry, it was a stinker.
Still, if you are uninitiated in the world of birth politics and feminist takes on maternity care, this would be an excellent place to get your feet wet.
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