Poetry Gives Words to the Depths of Pregnancy Loss

Poetry lends itself to a deep expression of feelings and is often able of capturing the most painful parts of the human experience.

This week we are joined by Dr. Elizabeth Fredericks, Assistant Professor of English at Hillsdale College to look at three Irish poems on early pregnancy loss.

We hope that these guided readings through these poems will touch and soothe your heart as only poetry can. 

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Poems read and discussed: 

Sinead Morrissey, “Stitches,” originally published in Between Here and There (Carcanet, 2002), reprinted in Parallax & Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2013)

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, “Miscarriage Abroad,” Northern Lights (Gallery Press, 2018)

Michael Longley, “Miscarriage,” published in An Exploded View: Poems 1968-1972 (Gollancz, 1973) (out of print)

Others mentioned:

Paul Muldoon, “The Stoic,” Moy Sand and Gravel (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2002)

Doireann Ní Ghríofa, “Waking,” Clasp (Dedalus Press, 2015)

We also talked about Eavan Boland; poems like “Night Feed” are in her Collected Poems (Norton, 2005).