everything down
hardens I press with horrible joy down
my back cracks like a wrist
shame I am voiding oh behind it is too late
hide me forever I work thrust I must free
now I all muscles & bones concentrate
what is living from dying?
–From John Berryman’s “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet”
This sentence is part of a longer passage that I quote in the epigraph to my unpublished novel, Nine Months, because I think it so wonderfully captures the intensity, beauty, rhythm and horror that is the miracle called childbirth.
Paula Bomer is the supervising editor of Sententia.
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John Madera
John Dermot Woods
Ryan W. Bradley
Michael Leong
Greg Gerke
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Stacy Muszynski
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Tim Jones-Yelvington
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Jeff Bursey
nice! it’s good to see someone use a sentence out of a poem :)
My compliments, & more. Berryman is an essential touchstone for me, a sensibility that finds the ecstasy in every ache.
Thanks, Ryan and John. Berryman moves me so. And because of him, I discovered Anne Bradstreet’s work.
“shame I am voiding” seems like a wonderfully empathetic touch.
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