{"id":453,"date":"2011-11-30T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T17:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=453"},"modified":"2011-11-30T17:03:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T17:03:07","slug":"carrie-etters-birthmothers-handbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/carrie-etters-birthmothers-handbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrie Etter's 'Birthmother's Handbook'"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Birthmother\u2019s Handbook<\/span>
  <\/span>
Choose another name for yourself, another city.<\/span>
Prepare for the nuisance of the body,<\/span>
a variegated allotment of pain and difficulty<\/span>
that presages old age.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Rub your hands over your distending belly,<\/span>
but not like a brass lamp, not like a crystal ball.<\/span>
Rub as though you are polishing silverware,<\/span>
its fine contours requiring slow work.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Listen to the doctor\u2019s requirements as a midwife.<\/span>
Insist that no drugs be given during labor<\/span>
so that pain might induce anger.<\/span>
Curse the fetus from your womb.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Mark time\u2019s progress, the approaching end.<\/span>
But above all, don\u2019t sing to him.<\/span>
Don\u2019t name him.  <\/span>
Never let him become someone you could lose.<\/span>




*<\/span>American expatriate<\/span> Carrie Etter<\/span> has published two collections, <\/span>The Tethers<\/span> (Seren, 2009) and <\/span>Divining for Starters<\/span> (Shearsman, 2011), and reviews contemporary poetry for <\/span>The Guardian<\/span>. She blogs at http:\/\/carrieetter.blogspot.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Birthmother\u2019s Handbook  Choose another name for yourself, another city.Prepare for the nuisance of the body,a variegated allotment of pain and difficultythat presages old age. Rub your hands over your distending belly,but not like a brass lamp, not like a crystal ball.Rub as though you are polishing silverware,its fine contours requiring slow work. Listen to the doctor\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}