• Mina Loy's "Parturition"
• Foreword – Alicia Ostriker
• Introductions – Catherine Wagner and Rebecca Wolff
• Night-pieces for A Child – Adrienne Rich
• from the Church – Jean Valentine
• The Locked Ward: O.T. – Jean Valentine
• Single Mother, 1966 – Jean Valentine
• Abortion Child – Jean Valentine
• Her dream: the child – Jean Valentine
• Dearest – Jean Valentine
• At the Door – Jean Valentine
• You Are Not One in a Sequence – Jean Valentine
• Maria Gravida, Mary Expectant – Jean Valentine
• from Natural Birth – Toi Derricotte
• The Fat Baby – Caroline Knox
• Therse Lavasseur – Caroline Knox
• from The Mother/Child Papers – Alicia Ostriker
• from Zombie Notes – Maureen Owen
• Bedtime – Maureen Owen
• from Letters to the Letters S and F – Maureen Owen
• from Hearts in Space – Maureen Owen
• from The No-Travels Journal – Maureen Owen
• Topography – Maureen Owen
• Giving Birth – Wanda Coleman
• 'Tis Morning Makes Mother A Killer – Wanda Coleman
• child of air and light not speaking – Kathleen Fraser
• Q – Fanny Howe
• The Nursery – Fanny Howe
• Conclusively – Fanny Howe
• A downpour – Martha Ronk
• Now it's up to the world
• "'You know how I am,' he said, 'when it is getting late'" – Martha Ronk
• from Spinoza in Her Youth – Norma Cole
• Dear Dark Continent – Alice Notley
• Three Strolls – Alice Notley
• 3 Postpartum Exercises – Alice Notley
• Splashes of Yellow – Alice Notley
• Walk, Walk, Walk – Alice Notley
• But He Says I Misunderstood – Alice Notley
• from Songs for the Unborn Second Baby – Alice Notley
• January – Alice Notley
• from Waltzing Matilda "12/2/80" – Alice Notley
• The World's 21 Greatest Animals: A Play – Alice Notley
• The Howling Saint T-Shirt – Alice Notley
• Midwinter Day, Section 2 – Bernadette Mayer
• Two Days After Joanna Had Two Stitches – Bernadette Mayer
• Marie Makes Fun of Me at the Shore – Bernadette Mayer
• Chocolate Sonnet – Bernadette Mayer
• A Birth – Maxin Chernoff
• Sotto Voce – Maxine Chernoff
• Identity Principle – Maxine Chernoff
• from Have You A Daughter? – Maxine Chernoff
• from The Angel of History – Carolyn Forche
• Curfew – Carolyn Forche
• Fiction – Rae Armantrout
• Attention – Rae Armantrout
• Crossing – Rae Armantrout
• A Story – Rae Armantrout
• Bases – Rae Armantrout
• Merely by Wilderness – Molly Peacock
• ChrisEaster – Molly Peacock
• On the Street – Molly Peacock
• The Ghost – Molly Peacock
• N/est – Ann Lauterbach
• Time Problem – Brenda Hillman
• Assent – Anne Waldman
• Poem – Anne Waldman
• Hermeneutical – Anne Waldman
• Baby's Pantoum – Anne Waldman
• The Moment the Two Worlds Meet – Sharon Olds
• New Mother – Sharon Olds
• The Clasp – Sharon Olds
• The Talk – Sharon Olds
• The One Girl at the Boys' Party – Sharon Olds
• The Language of the Brag – Sharon Olds
• First Weeks – Sharon Olds
• Rose – Rachel Blau Duplessis
• from Writing – Rachel Blau Duplessis
• Draft #2: She – Rachel Blau Duplessis
• Utica Station – Kimiko Hahn
• The Shower – Kimiko Hahn
• The Variable Field – Kimiko Hahn
• Everybody Was His Mother – Carla Harryman
• in temples – Akilah Oliver
• murdering – Akilah Oliver
• in Aporia – Akilah Oliver
• Provolone Baby – Thylias Moss
• A Catcher for an Atomic Bouquet – Thylias Moss
• Those Men at Redbones – Thylias Moss
• Gossamer and Thinner – Thylias Moss
• One for all Newborns – Thylias Moss
• What No One Could Have Told Them – C.D. Wright
• Detail from What No One Could Have Told Them – C.D. Wright
• Why Leave You So Soon Gone – C.D. Wright
• Personal Insurance – Mairead Byrne
• Downtown Crossing – Mairead Byrne
• The Handy EveryMother Zone-Out Capacitor – Mairead Byrne
• Circus – Mairead Byrne
• A Bonnet Gospel – Jean Donnelly
• The Four Year Old Girl – Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
• I Love Morning – Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
• Over Dark Arches – Annie Finch
• Churching – Annie Finch
• from Dr. B's Poof and Dare – Gillian Conoley
• (Erasures of Dr. Spock's Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care) – Gillian Conoley
• from I'm Not Effective In Fact I Use Uncalculated Rhythm Method – Karena Youtz
• Attache Case – Margaret Christakos
• Son – Margaret Christakos
• A Charm for Sleep – Pam Rehm
• Indebted – Pam Rehm
• Toccata with Child – Claudia Keelan
• To the New World – Claudia Keelan
• After Giving Birth, I Recall the Madonna and Child – Julianna Baggott
• Vigil – Elizabeth Robinson
• Coast – Elizabeth Robinson
• Hammock – Elizabeth Robinson
• Celestial Militia – Larissa Szporluk
• Mare Nubium – Larissa Szporluk
• Mare Fecunditatis – Larissa Szporluk
• Doppelganger – Larissa Szporluk
• Vivarium – Miranda Field
• What Birds Feel, Fish Feel, I Don't Know – Miranda Field
• The Milk the Hidden Ground the Armor Struggle on the Grass – Miranda Field
• Animal/Vegetable Fable – Miranda Field
• Boy Pouring Water – Miranda Field
• Citronella – Miranda Field
• Red Radio Flyer – Kimberly Lyons
• Astroland – Kimberly Lyons
• Miscarriage in Five Acts – Deborah Landau
• Mothering During Wartime – Caroline Maso
• Family Mommy – Sharon Harris
• A Conception – Kathleen Ossip
• Nursling – Kathleen Ossip
• Babyland – Kathlen Ossip
• from Wrought – Julie Carr
• Iliadic Familias (with Insertions from Homer) – Julie Carr
• Mother Poem – Julie Carr
• Here Happy Is No Part of Love – Rachel Zucker
• from First Sea – Laynie Browne
• Female Codon – Zhang Er
• Lecture on the Mother Image – Zhang Er
• from Abidjan Notebooks – Leslie Bumstead
• Lyana Sick and Next to Her – Olena Kaltiak-Davis
• "House" is Being Cleaned – Olena Kalytiak-Davis
• Look at Lesbia Now! – Olena Kaltiak-Davis
• In Praise of My Children – Olena Kaltiak-Davis
• from No Guns, No Durian – Susan M. Schultz
• Amniocentesis – Nicole Cooley
• Pregnant at the Archive – Nicole Cooley
• Cesarean – Nicole Cooley
• What Little Girls Are Made Of – Martha Silano
• Elegy for the Footie Pajamas – Beth Ann Fennelly
• Bite Me – Beth Ann Fennelly
• The Gods Tell Me, You Will Forget All This – Beth Ann Fennelly
• Wore a Hemp Hate Ate Grapes – Hoa Nguyen
• "By Goods We Destroy Good" – Hoa Nguyen
• The Earth Is in Me – Hoa Nguyen
• Up Nursing – Hoa Nguyen
• Eurasiacan – Hoa Nguyen
• Nonviolence – Marie Howe
• Courage – Marie Howe
• The false transfressive evangelista – Elizabeth Treadwell
• creche – Elizabeth Treadewell
• Scrawl – Lee Ann Brown
• 8th Month Couplets – Lee Ann Brown
• Up in Arms – Lee Ann Brown
• Music Plays All by Itself – Lee Ann Brown
• Tatami Mommy – Lee Ann Brown
• Miranda Lee Arrives in Alamos – Lee Ann Brown
• New Home to Pollen Path – Lee Ann Brown
• Anything – Lee Ann Brown
• Name of the Game – Lee Ann Brown
• Aesthetic Symbiotic – Caroline Crumpacker
• Small Fictive Devices: Family – Caroline Crumpacker
• Viewer Discretion and Young Child – Caroline Crumpacker
• A Man Can Still Dream of Cigarettes – Jenny Browne
• The Season When Some People Will Say – Jenny Browne
• from utter – Susana Gardner
• Steady, Steady – Jennifer Michael Hecht
• from Plot – Claudia Rankine
• Evening Without Swallows – Lisa Fishman
• Song for Mr. Singer – Lisa Fishman
• Coming Apart Between the Hours – Arielle Greenberg
• Reenactment – Arielle Greenberg
• G is for Glassblower. Gestated. Gravid. Ugly – Arielle Greenberg
• St. Liberata and the Alien Hordes – Lara Glenum
• Message to the Department of the Interior – Lara Glenum
• The Eggs of my Amnesia – Lara Glenum
• The Golden Wires Signing in the Veins – Lara Glenum
• Fertility – Lara Glenum
• Magnificat – Lara Glenum
• Nursery – Susan Holbrook
• Hatch – Christine Hume
• Lullaby – Christine Hume
• from the Body Clock – Eleni Sikelianos
• Wherein a Surrogate is Determined Prime – Danielle Pafunda
• Wherein a Surrogate Fails to Admit – Danielle Pafunda
• Wherein a Surrogate's Amelioration – Danielle Pafunda
• Wherein a Surrogate Assumes the Role – Danielle Pafunda
• Wherein a Surrogate's Fruition 2 – Danielle Pafunda
• Nature Study – Camille Guthrie
• Let Me Not Wander – Camille Guthrie
• Meaning What – Camille Guthrie
• BBC – Camille Guthrie
• In the Night Hospital – Camille Guthrie
• from Knot – Stacy Doris
• Late Onset Particle Capitalism – Amy Sara Carroll
• Let Down – Amy Sara Carroll
• Thrombotic – Amy Sara Carroll
• Ovulation – Amy Sara Carroll
• crystal virtues – Betsy Fagin
• satisfied and tickled – Betsy Fagin
• I Hear America Swimming – Sasha Steensen
• The Stranger at the Gates – Sasha Steensen
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments