E57 With Child by Genevieve Taggard

Description: 

An immersive reading of With Child by Genevieve Taggard with reflection on pregnancy, maternal mortality, pace, and isolation. 

Website:

https://anauscultation.wordpress.com

Work:

With Child
by Genevieve Taggard 

Now I am slow and placid, fond of sun,
Like a sleek beast, or a worn one:
No slim and languid girl—not glad
With the windy trip I once had,
But velvet-footed, musing of my own,
Torpid, mellow, stupid as a stone.

You cleft me with your beauty’s pulse, and now
Your pulse has taken body. Care not how
The old grace goes, how heavy I am grown,
Big with this loneliness, how you alone
Ponder our love. Touch my feet and feel
How earth tingles, teeming at my heel!
Earth’s urge, not mine,—my little death, not hers;
And the pure beauty yearns and stirs.

It does not heed our ecstacies, it turns
With secrets of its own, its own concerns,
Toward a windy world of its own, toward stark
And solitary places. In the dark,
Defiant even now, it tugs and moans
To be untangled from these mother’s bones.

References:

Goldenberg RL, McClure EM. Maternal mortality. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2011 Oct;205(4):293-5. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2011.07.045. Epub 2011 Aug 4. PMID: 22083050; PMCID: PMC3893928.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality 

Hoyert DL. Maternal mortality rates in the United States, 2023. NCHS Health E-Stats. 2025. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc/174577.

Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, Forciea MA; Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians; Denberg TD, Barry MJ, Boyd C, Chow RD, Fitterman N, Harris RP, Humphrey LL, Vijan S. Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2017 Apr 4;166(7):514-530. doi: 10.7326/M16-2367. Epub 2017 Feb 14. PMID: 28192789.

Moyer CA, Rounds J, Hannum JW. A meta-analysis of massage therapy research. Psychol Bull. 2004 Jan;130(1):3-18. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.130.1.3. PMID: 14717648.