In this Book
- This Country of Mothers
- Book
- 2001
- Published by: Southern Illinois University Press
- Series: Crab Orchard Series in Poetry
summary
A mosaic of memories, the poems of This Country of Mothers recollect Julianna Baggott’s experiences as both mother and daughter. With wit, compassion, aggression, and anxiety, Baggott examines her maternal history. She recalls moments of creation and destruction in her life, times of elation and of desperation that mold her as both a woman and a poet. This affecting study of motherhood is framed in issues of Catholicism and of poetry itself, challenging and espousing the roles of both. Throughout her poems, Baggott’s personal experiences embrace universal themes to birth poems in a language and style that is both powerfully feminine and accessibly human.
Table of Contents
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- Title Page
- p. 4
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xii
- One
- How It Begins
- pp. 3-16
- Kitchens: 1959
- pp. 4-5
- Conception
- pp. 6-7
- My Mother Gives Birth
- pp. 9-10
- Two
- Correcting Memory
- pp. 13-14
- The Knocking Tree
- pp. 15-28
- Recalling the Leg
- pp. 16-29
- Nights in Tijuana
- pp. 17-18
- First Time
- pp. 20-21
- What We Didn't Talk about at Fifteen
- pp. 22-35
- My Mother Refuses to Wear Glasses
- pp. 23-24
- How I Fear God
- pp. 27-40
- Coming Home at Seventeen
- pp. 28-29
- My Mother’s National Geographics
- pp. 30-31
- Three
- First Pregnancy
- pp. 36-49
- Satisfying the God of Statistics
- pp. 37-50
- Seventy Degrees in December
- pp. 39-40
- After the Miscarriage
- pp. 44-57
- Mother as Judas
- pp. 45-58
- Language Lab, Paris, 1989
- pp. 47-60
- After Eleven Days of Rain
- pp. 48-61
- The Cow Remembers Urus
- pp. 49-62
- Pharaoh’s Dream
- pp. 50-63
- My Daughter’s Sight
- pp. 51-64
- Four
- What the Poets Could Have Been
- pp. 57-58
- Dear Mr.Houdini,
- pp. 60-73
- What I Told the Jehovah’s Witness
- pp. 63-76
- Discussing Sorrow with Jesus
- pp. 64-65
- Jesus in the Mail
- pp. 67-80
- Living Where They Raised Me
- pp. 69-82
- The Beginning
- pp. 70-83
- Five
- My Mother among Bears
- pp. 75-88
- My Mother in the Garden
- pp. 78-91
- Mummification
- pp. 79-92
- The Extra Rib
- pp. 80-93
- Also in the Series
- p. 94
- Back Cover
- p. 95
Additional Information
ISBN
9780809390274
Related ISBN(s)
9780809323814
MARC Record
OCLC
828870154
Pages
96
Launched on MUSE
2014-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2001