Parturition

by Heather Treseler

Heather Treseler’s poems appear in Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review, Missouri Review, PN Review , and the Journal of the American Medical Association , and her essays about poetry appear in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Review, and in six books about American poetry. She is an associate professor of English and the Presidential Fellow for Art, Education, and Community at Worcester State University and a Visiting Scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center.

36 pages, Paperback

Published February 21, 2020

Reviews

[Kasey Teixeira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parturition is at once controlled and vulnerable. The most intimate depths of relationships and life experiences are thoughtfully revealed through poetry that speaks to the soul, yet continues to evoke the curiosity of the mind. "The Lucie Odes" stands out as a masterpiece tribute. This was absolutely beautiful to read and I expect to come back to it again and again.

[Sarah Giragosian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just gorgeous, lapidary craftsmanship. I appreciate the rhetorical range, delicacy of touch, and boundless intelligence of this collection.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

With uncanny aural precision and virtuosic sleight-of-hand, Treseler's stunning Parturition journeys us through the wrecked remains of American empire -- and offers, along the way, a alternative path, vis a vis the sheer power of her enduring vision. Buoyed by her "siren song of negation" Treseler's lyric imaginary eddies forth a "boat body" whose last sacramental rite is not rest, but the Orphic concomitance of form and voice, "bear[ing] the instrument of her making" as she navigates hauntingly between metaphor and rapture, state and self. Parturition is a triumph.

[Benjamin Felser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant and beautiful meditations on mothering and it’s connections to life and death, intimacy that blurs platonic and romantic love and loneliness. Found Treseler’s precise knowledge and employment of words (many of which I had to look up) to be inspiring as well.