Carcanet Press - Her Birth

Description
Excerpt
Author
Contents
Awards
Reviews

...clover
with an unlucky lobe,
the rarest of anomalies
that would flourish
and defeat her

from ‘Foetal Heart’

Shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Prize for Best Collection

In 2007 Rebecca Goss’s newborn daughter Ella was diagnosed with Severe Ebstein’s Anomaly, a rare and incurable heart condition. She lived for sixteen months. Her Birth is a book-length sequence of poems beginning with Ella’s birth, her short life and her death, and ending with the joys and complexities that come with the birth of another child. Goss navigates the difficult territory of grief and loss in poems that are spare, tender and haunting: ‘Going home, back down / the river road, will be a foreign route without her’.

'The poems in Her Birth unfold their story of love, loss and grief for a baby daughter with pared-down precision and scorching intensity.'
Helen Dunmore

Echo

Fetal Heart

Room in a Hospital

Skin-to-Skin

Toast

Clinic

Echo

Palliative

A Dream of Heart Babies

I Sweat When I

Swings

Ward at Night

Severe Ebstein’s Anomaly

A Child Dies in Liverpool

Post

St Mary’s

Her Birth

Mining

The Postmistress

Honey

Stretch Marks

The Highchair

Mining

You’re Lucky You Can Dream About Her

October

Muscovado Sugar

My Neighbour’s Himalayan Birch

The 21st of March

Mothers of the Dead

Found

Helpline

The Lights

Sunday Papers

Grief Goes Jogging

Peeing at the Odeon

Repair

Another

Welcome

Why We Had Another Baby

Test

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

As Owls Do

Clothes

Welcome

Shadows

My Animal

Lost

Bench

Telling the Tale

In Memory of John Ernest Goss 1920–2011

Snail

Moon

Taking You There

Last Poem

Acknowledgements

Rebecca Goss lives in Suffolk. Her first full-length collection, The Anatomy of Structures, was published in 2010 by Flambard Press. Her second collection Her Birth (Carcanet/Northern House, 2013) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2013, the Warwick Prize for Writing 2015 and the Portico Prize for Literature ... read more

Awards won by Rebecca Goss Short-listed, 2019 The East Anglian Book (Poetry) Award (Girl) Winner, 2014 East Anglian Book Awards for Poetry (Her Birth) Short-listed, 2015 The Portico Prize for Literature (Her Birth) Short-listed, 2015 The Warwick Prize for Writing (Her Birth) Short-listed, 2013 The Forward Prize for Best Collection (Her Birth)

Praise for Rebecca Goss 'Tenderness between mothers and daughters is the collection's keynote . . . graceful, measured and joyous'
Suzannah V. Evans, TLS
'It is clearly with great skill that Goss demonstrates how one can be close to a subject, yet simultaneously far away... Girl can be read as a neutral document of experiences that observe details in the same way that one would collate data points. It is a chronology of moments that neither indicate the speaker's interest or ennui; they are simply pieces of an individual life.'
Sarah-Jean Zubair, Poetry London
'Goss contiunes to mine distinctive terrain which makes the best of her poetry compelling... these poems are impressive for launching seams of intense emotion from so minimalist a source'
Ellen Cranitch, The Poetry Review
'Rebecca Goss's poems have their own sure authority; they are never ostentatious or trendily experimental, and her voice rings out clear, promising always more to come'
Patricia McCarthy, Agenda Ekphrastic Issue
'A passionate, tender, thrilling book.'
Helen Mort
'This is a book about human bodies: freckles, fists, itches and that 'private reek'. Graphic, funny and tender, these poems jostle with bodies that swim, jog, fuck, medicate, spin on dodgems, grow up and grow ill. Rebecca Goss captures both the pleasure and the pain. Girl is a quivering, kicking reminder of what it is to be alive.'
Clare Pollard
'From the first poem about a mother struck by lightning, closely followed by the delicate, intimate and equally astonishing title poem, 'Girl' - the first of a series inspired by Alison Watt's paintings that are threaded throughout this collection - I was totally gripped. Rebecca Goss's voice is quietly passionate. Her forms are exquisitely crafted. Her themes, of human fragility and of our bodies' capacity for pleasure and pain, are universal.'
Vicki Feaver
'The people in these poems are split down the middle - by lightening, by the 'marquise cut' of birth, by love, and yet beauty flies from the breakage, something 'large, planetary'. These are poems of brave surrender to the accident of living, the constant somersault, and regardless of whether the change is huge or tiny - a thunderbolt or an unexpected freckle - it is always fundamental, always shattering, always a thrill.'
Caroline Bird

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Her Birth Rebecca Goss RRP: GBP 9.95 Available eBook (EPUB) ISBN: 978 1 847774 45 3 Categories: 21st Century, British, Women Imprint: Northern House Published: July 2013 70 pages (print version) Publisher: Carcanet Press Also available in: eBook (Kindle), Paperback Description Excerpt Author Contents Awards Reviews ...clover with an unlucky lobe, the rarest of anomalies that would flourish and defeat her from ‘Foetal Heart’ Shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Prize for Best Collection In 2007 Rebecca Goss’s newborn daughter Ella was diagnosed with Severe Ebstein’s Anomaly, a rare and incurable heart condition. She lived for sixteen months. Her Birth is a book-length sequence of poems beginning with Ella’s birth, her short life and her death, and ending with the joys and complexities that come with the birth of another child. Goss navigates the difficult territory of grief and loss in poems that are spare, tender and haunting: ‘Going home, back down / the river road, will be a foreign route without her’. 'The poems in Her Birth unfold their story of love, loss and grief for a baby daughter with pared-down precision and scorching intensity.' Helen Dunmore Echo Fetal Heart Room in a Hospital Skin-to-Skin Toast Clinic Echo Palliative A Dream of Heart Babies I Sweat When I Swings Ward at Night Severe Ebstein’s Anomaly A Child Dies in Liverpool Post St Mary’s Her Birth Mining The Postmistress Honey Stretch Marks The Highchair Print Mining You’re Lucky You Can Dream About Her October Muscovado Sugar My Neighbour’s Himalayan Birch The 21st of March Mothers of the Dead Found Helpline The Lights Sunday Papers Grief Goes Jogging Peeing at the Odeon Repair Another Welcome Why We Had Another Baby Test Hyperemesis Gravidarum As Owls Do Clothes Welcome Shadows My Animal Lost Bench Telling the Tale In Memory of John Ernest Goss 1920–2011 Snail Moon Taking You There Last Poem Acknowledgements Rebecca Goss lives in Suffolk. Her first full-length collection, The Anatomy of Structures, was published in 2010 by Flambard Press. Her second collection Her Birth (Carcanet/Northern House, 2013) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2013, the Warwick Prize for Writing 2015 and the Portico Prize for Literature ... read more Awards won by Rebecca Goss Short-listed, 2019 The East Anglian Book (Poetry) Award (Girl) Winner, 2014 East Anglian Book Awards for Poetry (Her Birth) Short-listed, 2015 The Portico Prize for Literature (Her Birth) Short-listed, 2015 The Warwick Prize for Writing (Her Birth) Short-listed, 2013 The Forward Prize for Best Collection (Her Birth) Praise for Rebecca Goss 'Tenderness between mothers and daughters is the collection's keynote . . . graceful, measured and joyous' Suzannah V. Evans, TLS 'It is clearly with great skill that Goss demonstrates how one can be close to a subject, yet simultaneously far away... Girl can be read as a neutral document of experiences that observe details in the same way that one would collate data points. It is a chronology of moments that neither indicate the speaker's interest or ennui; they are simply pieces of an individual life.' Sarah-Jean Zubair, Poetry London 'Goss contiunes to mine distinctive terrain which makes the best of her poetry compelling... these poems are impressive for launching seams of intense emotion from so minimalist a source' Ellen Cranitch, The Poetry Review 'Rebecca Goss's poems have their own sure authority; they are never ostentatious or trendily experimental, and her voice rings out clear, promising always more to come' *Patricia McCarthy, Agenda* Ekphrastic Issue** 'A passionate, tender, thrilling book.' Helen Mort 'This is a book about human bodies: freckles, fists, itches and that 'private reek'. Graphic, funny and tender, these poems jostle with bodies that swim, jog, fuck, medicate, spin on dodgems, grow up and grow ill. Rebecca Goss captures both the pleasure and the pain. Girl is a quivering, kicking reminder of what it is to be alive.' Clare Pollard 'From the first poem about a mother struck by lightning, closely followed by the delicate, intimate and equally astonishing title poem, 'Girl' - the first of a series inspired by Alison Watt's paintings that are threaded throughout this collection - I was totally gripped. Rebecca Goss's voice is quietly passionate. Her forms are exquisitely crafted. Her themes, of human fragility and of our bodies' capacity for pleasure and pain, are universal.' Vicki Feaver 'The people in these poems are split down the middle - by lightening, by the 'marquise cut' of birth, by love, and yet beauty flies from the breakage, something 'large, planetary'. These are poems of brave surrender to the accident of living, the constant somersault, and regardless of whether the change is huge or tiny - a thunderbolt or an unexpected freckle - it is always fundamental, always shattering, always a thrill.' Caroline Bird	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! 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