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The Babies
Funny and frightening, moving and unsettling, the prose poems in Mark’s debut collection take readers on a wild ride The Babies, by Sabrina Orah Mark, is the premier winner of the Saturnalia Books Poetry Contest, judged by renowned poet Jane Miller (Memory at These New and Selected Poetry). Of The Babies, poet Claudia Rankine writes, “Rarely do we encounter poems that are so precisely framed, though on their surface seemingly whimsical and erratic. These poems are gorgeous, intelligent, and disturbing.”
- GenresPoetry
68 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2004
7 people are currently reading
608 people want to read
About the author
Sabrina Orah Mark
8 books268 followersSabrina Orah Mark is the author of Wild Milk, a collection of fiction, as well as two collections of poetry, The Babies and Tsim Tsum. Happily, which began as a monthly column on fairytales and motherhood inThe Paris Review, is now out from Random House. She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She lives in Athens, Georgia. You can read more about her teaching and her writing at www.sabrinaorahmark.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
August 4, 2008
A perfect example of someone who "makes" instead of "describes," Sabrina Mark's first collection (published by Saturnalia... it's a damn purty-lookin' book too) is probably my favorite book of prose poems EVAH. Weird, intriguing, mysteriously and lovely, seemingly able to work against itself and with itself, the mythology in Mark's book churns and rediscovers... a house with many doors.
June 23, 2008
Odd, evocative, unsettling and strangely sensual.
October 26, 2007
While much contemporary experimental poetry can be daunting or uninviting to the reader, Sabrina Orah Mark’s first collection, The Babies, preserves its experimentalism while avoiding pretension or obscurity. Much like a ride at a carnival, this book is both scary and fun at the same time while giving the illusion that at any moment, it could completely come undone. Mark manages to remain linguistically innovative while also devastating her reader with surreal imagery at every turn.
Losing a limb seems within the realm of possibility as we enter the surreal landscape of The Babies; we are quickly immersed in a grotesquely cartoon-like world of dismembered bodies and disembodied corpses. For Mark, the body is something immediately inhabitable by the outside world, and much like the history created in these poems, it is a malleable and impressionable entity. In the first poem of Section 1, “Amen,” the body is present as a gamble and a form: “’Heads or tails,’ they’d ask. ‘As a friend, I’d recommend the head.’” As if the speaker is not in on the “joke,” she takes the question of the body quite literally and seriously. Likewise, nothing in this book is to be taken at face value, especially in the context of history: “One day, they kneeled inside me and called me a Jew. At first I rejected their offer, but they were right and offered me a lady’s hat. I did not fear them until I wanted to be afraid. The lake was guarded and the road to the town was closed.” Mark gives us a historical context which frames the rest of the book. With this gesture, we are also given a clue to the identity of the speaker, who floats between worlds like a shade. She is marked, both literally and figuratively (labeled by the invasion and occupation of her own body) as the Other. This gesture opens the complexity of the poems to another level; most images (the red dress, the mustache, the wig) take on a new importance within this frame. This book would not be nearly as devastating or accomplished without this naming as a foreground to the rest of the book.
Mark has chosen the perfect form for her content in the prose poem. Following poets like Cole Swensen, Abagail Child, Susan Howe and Lyn Hejinian in writing a complete collection of prose poems which ultimately link together, Mark’s narrative presents itself as narrative and is vested in its ability to tell a story, albeit a fragmented and incomplete account. Though the narrative is non-linear, the prose form gives the illusion that what appears on the page is a “story.” Narrative elements like time markers (“Tonight I unwrap the accordion. . .” or “Late one night I enter the laboratory's.”) and identified characters (Mrs. Greenaway, Bewilder, Walter B., Mama, Eugene, Old Gerta, Asa, the babies) sprinkled throughout seem to bring us along on the speaker’s journey, though because the journey is so bizarre and grotesque, we soon realize that we are not being told the “truth.” Often echoing the tone of Theresa Cha’s Dictee, the poem becomes the speaker’s exercise or experiment in understanding. The rhythm of the prose is infectious, the way it turns and tumbles from nonsense to lyric moments of awareness, and is difficult to clear from our minds once we finish reading it. “A Kaddish,” for example, does this well.
Narrative elements like character and time stamps draw us in, and though images like the sawdust girl being lifted may not completely make sense, Mark has achieved a moment of devastation and gravity. Everywhere are hints of death, even in their most bizarre form. We cannot escape the gravity of the “shiver, shiva, shhh….” which alludes to a Jewish period of mourning for the dead. The speaker and the reader hear this among the bustle.
Losing a limb seems within the realm of possibility as we enter the surreal landscape of The Babies; we are quickly immersed in a grotesquely cartoon-like world of dismembered bodies and disembodied corpses. For Mark, the body is something immediately inhabitable by the outside world, and much like the history created in these poems, it is a malleable and impressionable entity. In the first poem of Section 1, “Amen,” the body is present as a gamble and a form: “’Heads or tails,’ they’d ask. ‘As a friend, I’d recommend the head.’” As if the speaker is not in on the “joke,” she takes the question of the body quite literally and seriously. Likewise, nothing in this book is to be taken at face value, especially in the context of history: “One day, they kneeled inside me and called me a Jew. At first I rejected their offer, but they were right and offered me a lady’s hat. I did not fear them until I wanted to be afraid. The lake was guarded and the road to the town was closed.” Mark gives us a historical context which frames the rest of the book. With this gesture, we are also given a clue to the identity of the speaker, who floats between worlds like a shade. She is marked, both literally and figuratively (labeled by the invasion and occupation of her own body) as the Other. This gesture opens the complexity of the poems to another level; most images (the red dress, the mustache, the wig) take on a new importance within this frame. This book would not be nearly as devastating or accomplished without this naming as a foreground to the rest of the book.
Mark has chosen the perfect form for her content in the prose poem. Following poets like Cole Swensen, Abagail Child, Susan Howe and Lyn Hejinian in writing a complete collection of prose poems which ultimately link together, Mark’s narrative presents itself as narrative and is vested in its ability to tell a story, albeit a fragmented and incomplete account. Though the narrative is non-linear, the prose form gives the illusion that what appears on the page is a “story.” Narrative elements like time markers (“Tonight I unwrap the accordion. . .” or “Late one night I enter the laboratory's.”) and identified characters (Mrs. Greenaway, Bewilder, Walter B., Mama, Eugene, Old Gerta, Asa, the babies) sprinkled throughout seem to bring us along on the speaker’s journey, though because the journey is so bizarre and grotesque, we soon realize that we are not being told the “truth.” Often echoing the tone of Theresa Cha’s Dictee, the poem becomes the speaker’s exercise or experiment in understanding. The rhythm of the prose is infectious, the way it turns and tumbles from nonsense to lyric moments of awareness, and is difficult to clear from our minds once we finish reading it. “A Kaddish,” for example, does this well.
Narrative elements like character and time stamps draw us in, and though images like the sawdust girl being lifted may not completely make sense, Mark has achieved a moment of devastation and gravity. Everywhere are hints of death, even in their most bizarre form. We cannot escape the gravity of the “shiver, shiva, shhh….” which alludes to a Jewish period of mourning for the dead. The speaker and the reader hear this among the bustle.
April 12, 2019
I'll never completely finish this. Just continually return to it, again and again.
September 7, 2022
literally so brilliant! sabrina orah mark is so insanely creative i would love to have a conversation with her today.
this book is basically “Wild Milk” for the apocalypse. its so grim and so funny and a PERFECT wild milk companion!!! benny needs to read this immediately
this book is basically “Wild Milk” for the apocalypse. its so grim and so funny and a PERFECT wild milk companion!!! benny needs to read this immediately
April 6, 2008
I started this book last year, and for whatever reason, just couldn't get into it. i wasn't in the right mindset or mood to receive the poetry. but this time around, something clicked and i feel it's one of the most exciting books of poetry i've read in awhile. you might be thinking, jesus lauren, you say that for every book of poetry you read. but this one is worth your time, i swear. it's creepy, delicate, surprising, full of terror and tenderness. I have a feeling that if i had been in workshop with the author i would have resented her for how weird and random her poetry seems on the surface. but i would have been wrong.
October 15, 2015
"The experiments lasted through the winter" forever. Two separate people told me to read this inside of a week which doesn't happen that often so I took it as a sign from the universe. These poems operate in their own logic -- book is decidedly experimental, not concerned with the traditional kind of sense, yet still manages to be about something. I confess I didn't get the holocaust subtext for a while (the babies are all the babies never born to the six million dead) and there were places where that conceit wanders off for stretches of time. Definitely one of those books that sticks w you even if you wondered if you liked it while reading.
March 12, 2025
im writing a prose poetry on dreams for senior project so my prof recommended I look at the poem "the mustache" and then the poem "the babies" since they are slippery. then she recommended the rest of the collection so I read it. the tone of the writing is very sharp and dry in a good way and really clever. the poems are absurd but also precise in the emotions they convey, and within this given world there are very specific and "right" images.
I didn't understand all of the poems perfectly and at a certain point it lowkey got to me lol because I reread a poem like three, four times and still felt so lost yet very much wanted to understand it. but this was good because it led me to google. tbh not a lot of info on these poems out there (some of the poems are not on the internet at all) but in the reviews I came across, I learned that the historical context is the holocaust. this drastically changed the way I understood a lot of the delirious, whimsical nature of the poems (esp "the mustache").
anyways suchh a good poetry collection, one of my favorites yet. the language is so beautiful. I have a whole doc of favorite lines but there are too many so here are only some:
“where I fold and unfold my left arm into November,”
“She is obsessed with the notion that the little birds were taken from her. They were my little birds, humming. Not theirs.”
“There are those for whom osip zoo does not exist”
“Sit in the corner so that everything is touching”
“There is less of it now and more of other animals, but there is only one animal. Ladders we carry to see how far the ladder takes us. Machines we build to feel the sadness of machines. When i pull the cord there is only one animal”
“Have you ever been the only one looking?”
I didn't understand all of the poems perfectly and at a certain point it lowkey got to me lol because I reread a poem like three, four times and still felt so lost yet very much wanted to understand it. but this was good because it led me to google. tbh not a lot of info on these poems out there (some of the poems are not on the internet at all) but in the reviews I came across, I learned that the historical context is the holocaust. this drastically changed the way I understood a lot of the delirious, whimsical nature of the poems (esp "the mustache").
anyways suchh a good poetry collection, one of my favorites yet. the language is so beautiful. I have a whole doc of favorite lines but there are too many so here are only some:
“where I fold and unfold my left arm into November,”
“She is obsessed with the notion that the little birds were taken from her. They were my little birds, humming. Not theirs.”
“There are those for whom osip zoo does not exist”
“Sit in the corner so that everything is touching”
“There is less of it now and more of other animals, but there is only one animal. Ladders we carry to see how far the ladder takes us. Machines we build to feel the sadness of machines. When i pull the cord there is only one animal”
“Have you ever been the only one looking?”
June 2, 2022
“She is obsessed with the notion that the little birds were taken from her. They were my little birds, humming. Not theirs. She is so radically unconscious she may never be remembered. My little humming birds, not theirs.” — from “The Necklace”
TITLE—The Babies
AUTHOR—Sabrina Orah Mark
PUBLISHED—2004
GENRE—prose poetry
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—war & genocide, abandonment of person & place, love as seen through funhouse mirrors, presentation and perception, the lost & the found, memories, skipped motherhood & the inheritors of the future
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—Sabrina Orah Mark’s column for The Paris Review is my favorite so it was fun to read a different medium by her even if it went entirely over my head. 😅
“Sometimes, Beatrice, someone is assigned when there is no one else. It is too late for you, Beatrice, and it is too late for you to dig for me up their fresh hooves, their fresh hooves, in your terrible smock.” — from “Interlude”
Ok I’ve been sitting on this “review” since I wrote it while reading and just after finishing the book and I’m just going to publish it like it is because 🤷🏻♀️🤣
I tried to navigate these poems by instinct, gazing across and beyond their surfaces to try to see the deeper parts—a sort of cross-eyed scrying past the bubbles and flitting shapes and shadows of the words. An echo of an image here, an itch, a recalling there. An impenetrable beauty. Silence. Perhaps I’ll try again later...
Peering through glass windows, breathing a clearing fog, wiped away with the callous of a palm, roof fingers across my brow to see through the glare into the darkness. But the lights are on. I see something deeply relevant: a wedding? a birth? a prayer? I can’t make out the figures, can barely make out the words dancing silently across their lips. What are they saying? “Call me Berlin. Call me Your Last Descension.” These words mean nothing to me.
But I still loved the experience and the way Mark uses language and structure in her poems. I particularly liked “Box Three, Spool Five”, “The Necklace” (Frida Kahlo vibes), “Non Vixit”, and especially “Interlude”—the Beatrice poem.
Afterword: *Is* it possible that this collection is written in some kind of poets’ code? (see “The Ledger”, p. 58) Or perhaps this is just the hidden meaning behind the Goat Song… “zwangzug, zwangzug, zwangzug…” “where is the meaning? where is the meaning? where is the meaning?” I need to take another poetry class. 😂
“He said, a starving octopus has been known to eat her own heart.” — from “The Black Umbrella”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
TW // the Holocaust (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)
Further Reading—
- Wild Milk, by Sabrina Orah Mark
- Tsim, Tsum, by Sabrina Orah Mark—currently reading
- ‘Happily’: Sabrina Orah Mark’s fairy tales inspired column for The Paris Review
- Aimee Nezhukumatathil—who’s written some of my favorite prose poems
- Content Warning: Everything, by Akwaeke Emezi—more excellent prose poems
May 6, 2023
"Machines we build to feel the sadness of machines. When I pull the cord there is only one animal. Do not be afraid, you are its world."
~ from "Non Vixit"
There’s a kind of mad logic to Mark’s writing where she flirts with the utterly nonsensical but somehow makes it feel like she’s put the reader in touch with a timeless sort of myth or fairytale which one must interpret through something just a tiny step beyond language. These tight prose pieces range from feeling like conversations to miniature stories to interviews. Playful, disturbing, and inventive. I first discovered her prose via the wonderful Dorothy Publishing and now Mark has introduced me to Saturnalia Books, whose first poetry prize she won with this collection in 2004.
Here is a morsel upon which you may chew:
In The Origami Fields
where I fold and unfold my left arm into November, my hair
into my sister,
where the black-gloved woman plays my heart like a crumpled
violin,
where I stand creased and lusting for paper, where I have no
more dead lovers
than you, where beautiful girls are always asked for directions,
where I keep myself real, flirting with the ventriloquists,
where my father holds me like a paper doll, where doors can be
torn down
swiftly, where neither one of us is a miracle,
I understand only this:
It is lonely in a place that can burn so fast.
There’s a kind of mad logic to Mark’s writing where she flirts with the utterly nonsensical but somehow makes it feel like she’s put the reader in touch with a timeless sort of myth or fairytale which one must interpret through something just a tiny step beyond language. These tight prose pieces range from feeling like conversations to miniature stories to interviews. Playful, disturbing, and inventive. I first discovered her prose via the wonderful Dorothy Publishing and now Mark has introduced me to Saturnalia Books, whose first poetry prize she won with this collection in 2004.
Here is a morsel upon which you may chew:
In The Origami Fields
where I fold and unfold my left arm into November, my hair
into my sister,
where the black-gloved woman plays my heart like a crumpled
violin,
where I stand creased and lusting for paper, where I have no
more dead lovers
than you, where beautiful girls are always asked for directions,
where I keep myself real, flirting with the ventriloquists,
where my father holds me like a paper doll, where doors can be
torn down
swiftly, where neither one of us is a miracle,
I understand only this:
It is lonely in a place that can burn so fast.
December 17, 2020
These poems are dark, unfurling, wondrous objects. Surprising and surreal, with lines like "he brushes the babies' damp gray hair against my neck" and "the gods were quietly touching each other in the last black carriage," THE BABIES tore me open, stuffed me with fox fur and wisteria and a corset throat farewell, then stitched me back together in a redskin dress.
January 25, 2008
I've never read a book and not been biased. Have you? Of course I'm biased.
Sabrina Orah Mark's marvelous -- and I mean marvelous in both sense of the word -- collection of prose poems in a masterful assimilation of historical specifics into the childlike consciousness of an infinite presence. Rarely do we encounter poems that are so precisely framed, though on their surface seemingly whimsical and erratic. These poems are gorgeous, intelligent, and disturbing. They are owned by the imagination that created them and the history that created her.
Ok, I didn't write that, but it's good, right?
There's a reason that a particularly well-constructed piece of writing is referred to as "poetry." So, this is the greatest book of poetry of all time.
Sabrina Orah Mark's marvelous -- and I mean marvelous in both sense of the word -- collection of prose poems in a masterful assimilation of historical specifics into the childlike consciousness of an infinite presence. Rarely do we encounter poems that are so precisely framed, though on their surface seemingly whimsical and erratic. These poems are gorgeous, intelligent, and disturbing. They are owned by the imagination that created them and the history that created her.
Ok, I didn't write that, but it's good, right?
There's a reason that a particularly well-constructed piece of writing is referred to as "poetry." So, this is the greatest book of poetry of all time.
April 14, 2014
This is fun--it’s one of those times when I read a poem in a lit mag and immediately log on to buy the poet’s books. There I was: innocently reading Black Warrior Review, when a poem by Sabrina Orah Mark knocked my socks off. I really enjoyed this collection. It’s inventive, surprising, yet also deeply felt. That’s a difficult combination with surrealism.
Some of my favorite moments:
“I did not fear them until I wanted to be afraid.”
“It is lonely in a place that can burn so fast.”
“he left me for a more beautiful robot.”
“Wheat the rubble collector out of old rage and oranges.”
“I am as among the cat’s red tongue as I’ll ever be.”
“Too much architecture, not enough rain..”
“In those days, I often felt in advance of feeling.”
Some of my favorite moments:
“I did not fear them until I wanted to be afraid.”
“It is lonely in a place that can burn so fast.”
“he left me for a more beautiful robot.”
“Wheat the rubble collector out of old rage and oranges.”
“I am as among the cat’s red tongue as I’ll ever be.”
“Too much architecture, not enough rain..”
“In those days, I often felt in advance of feeling.”
September 10, 2011
S. Orah Mark, along with Mark Wunderlich has also been very influential to my growth as a poet. Her otherworldly views of nature have mixed with my own views of nature in literature and have have tied in that natural or supernatural spirituality with human relationships. She often works in prose, a format that I am quite fond of, but am not sure if I will ever be able to master at her infinitely proficient level.
January 10, 2008
Getting ready to teach this.
March 18, 2008
this book is fascinating. A brilliant imagination, brilliant music. I haven't read anything like it before.
August 22, 2020
21/31
(We have been away camping. So I brought 4 books to read around the campfire.)
What a delightful and strange little book of poetry. Rather associative, fully of a fairy tale quality, which should not be surprising given that Sabrina Orah Mark writes the column “Happily” for the Paris Review, which focuses on fairy tales and motherhood.
#SealeyChallenge #Sabrina Orah Mark
From “Thank You”
“Thank you for the wedding glove. We split it seven ways. When we looked inside first it was cold second it sent shivers down our heart. Bones got caught in the fence. Thank you for the way the ribbons went. Bewilder’s all choked up.”
(We have been away camping. So I brought 4 books to read around the campfire.)
What a delightful and strange little book of poetry. Rather associative, fully of a fairy tale quality, which should not be surprising given that Sabrina Orah Mark writes the column “Happily” for the Paris Review, which focuses on fairy tales and motherhood.
#SealeyChallenge #Sabrina Orah Mark
From “Thank You”
“Thank you for the wedding glove. We split it seven ways. When we looked inside first it was cold second it sent shivers down our heart. Bones got caught in the fence. Thank you for the way the ribbons went. Bewilder’s all choked up.”
August 25, 2018
I read a piece off Ms. Mark's blog that floored me. Here's the link. https://www.sabrinaorahmark.com/news/ I highly recommend this. So I immediately ordered both of her books of poetry, sight unseen. Sadly, I found her poems less satisfying, more dizzying. Interesting and skilled, certainly, but not my cup of tea as poetry goes. However, it looks like she writes broadly and I will be picking up more of her work because of that initial reaction to her blog post.
Read
March 18, 2021It's truly rare for me to come across a poetry book I can't finish (Gabbie Hanna's comes to mind) but I got halfway through this book and meh'd right out of there. These poems make no sense to me and I don't like the words they string together. It sounds like stream-of-consciousness from someone who doesn't know language yet. And even in my bafflement it evoked images that I couldn't deal with, stuff from childhood I don't want to think about?? So this book is gonna be a no from me, pal.
May 6, 2024
These prose poems are precise and grotesque, pulsing and alive.
"The milk is mildly foxed. The sky, too, is mildly foxed.
And it is wonderful to see the dexterity with which the
dark beak hangs on, although it too, is mildly foxed. As
are the woods. As is the fox. We are all mildly foxed.
Even Mama. Even Mama is mildly foxed."
"The milk is mildly foxed. The sky, too, is mildly foxed.
And it is wonderful to see the dexterity with which the
dark beak hangs on, although it too, is mildly foxed. As
are the woods. As is the fox. We are all mildly foxed.
Even Mama. Even Mama is mildly foxed."
June 17, 2020
Fascinating collection of prose poetry. Definitely with a dark streak. Foreboding. At times I felt like it was a different language that I just couldn't access, which was a bit frustrating for me, but I'm glad I read it.
May 24, 2017
Beautiful collection of prose poems!
October 10, 2018
The Babies changed my life. Sabrina Orah Mark is an incredible inspiration and I wouldn't be the writer I am today without having read her work.
August 10, 2019
A little front-loaded for me, personally, but showing a great deal of potential in its Celan-influenced Fanny and Alexander thang
June 4, 2021
3.5
Refreshingly odd and oddly refreshing. But soon became a tire because there isn't really a story. Only great scenes.
Refreshingly odd and oddly refreshing. But soon became a tire because there isn't really a story. Only great scenes.
June 6, 2023
So utterly gorgeous and grotesque, breathtaking
July 10, 2025
as sabrina likes to say, write a door and walk through
December 3, 2007
i'm just starting to seriously learn about poetry. i'm having a hard time understanding the separation of the categories "poetry" and "brain barf."
this book, i would say, falls in the latter category. still, the product of an interesting brain... if this book were all the pages she had torn out of her journal so that they would not be subjected to criticism, i would be really interested to see what she was working on the rest of the time. echoes of ben marcus (associative patterns) and stacey levine (sentence construction.)
this book, i would say, falls in the latter category. still, the product of an interesting brain... if this book were all the pages she had torn out of her journal so that they would not be subjected to criticism, i would be really interested to see what she was working on the rest of the time. echoes of ben marcus (associative patterns) and stacey levine (sentence construction.)
June 28, 2013
This was required reading for one of my poetry classes in college. Not sure we ever actually used it in the class.
I find it hard to accurately review poetry. It is a visceral, emotional experience that is unique to the reader, so how can one properly put into words those emotional responses in any proper context to others?
One of the key components of good poetry is to spur the imagination, to inspire. And I can definitely say that Sabrina Orah Mark inspires and spurs the imagination with this collection.
I find it hard to accurately review poetry. It is a visceral, emotional experience that is unique to the reader, so how can one properly put into words those emotional responses in any proper context to others?
One of the key components of good poetry is to spur the imagination, to inspire. And I can definitely say that Sabrina Orah Mark inspires and spurs the imagination with this collection.
June 30, 2008
"The milk is mildly foxed. The sky, too, is mildly foxed. And it is wonderful to see the dexterity with which the dark beak hangs on, although it, too, is mildly foxed. As are the woods. As is the fox. We are all mildly foxed. Even Mama. Even Mama is mildly foxed."
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews