Q & A

By Adrienne Gruber

Adrienne Gruber's third full poetry collection, Q & A, is a poetic memoir detailing a first pregnancy, birth and early postpartum period. The poet is both traumatized and transformed by the birth of her daughter. She is compelled by the dark places birth takes her and as she examines and revisits those places, a grotesque history of the treatment of pregnant and birthing women reveals itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookhug Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781771664738

Adrienne Gruber

Adrienne Gruber is the author of three books of poetry, Q & A (Book*hug), Buoyancy Control (BookThug) and This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), and five chapbooks. She won The Antigonish Review's Great Blue Heron poetry contest in 2015, SubTerrain's Lush Triumphant poetry contest in 2017 and has been short-listed for the CBC Literary Awards, ARC?s Poem of the Year contest, Descant's Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem contest and Matrix Magazine's Lit POP poetry contest. In 2012, her chapbook, Mimic was awarded the bp Nichol Chapbook Award. Originally from Saskatoon, Adrienne lives in Vancouver with her partner and two daughters.

Book preview

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first edition

Copyright © 2019 by Adrienne Gruber

all rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Book*hug Press also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

Book*hug Press acknowledges the land on which it operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Q & A / Adrienne Gruber.

Other titles: Q and A

Names: Gruber, Adrienne, 1980- author.

Description: Poems.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2019006482X | Canadiana (ebook) 20190064838 |

ISBN 9781771664721 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771664738 (HTML) | ISBN 9781771664745 (PDF) | ISBN 9781771664752 (Kindle)

Classification: LCC PS8613.R79 Q2 2019 | DDC C811/.6—dc23

printed in canada

Dedication

For Quintana Roo Elizabeth Gruber-Hill

contents

Questions • 9

Q & A • 11

Not Trying • 12

Ovulatory Lineage • 13

What to Expect When You’re Expecting (100 Years Ago) • 14

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo • 19

Mother Failure Begins in Utero • 20

Hygiene of Antenatal Life • 21

Gestational Fall • 22

Q • 29

Eventide • 30

Your father • 31

Better Birthing through Chemistry • 32

The Display Window • 34

Dämmerschlaf • 35

Painless Parturition by Fruit Diet • 38

Last Straw • 39

Ode to Lucy’s Pelvis • 40

Carolyn Broke My Water and Your Luck Gushed Out