Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

Norman, Renee

Renee Norman 
Saving the Baby 
-a scene- 
(A woman lies on the floor of the stage, dressed in a green hospital gown, 
and covered only by a thin sheet which doesn't quite cover her bare feet. A 
bedpan has been placed by her side, stage front. A green cloth backdrop is the 
only stage scenery in the background, suspended by a pole which runs the length 
and width of the stage, like the curtain which separates hospital beds in non- 
private rooms. The woman speaks her monologue from this position.) 
Woman: Blood. Just a small, teardrop-shaped smear of blood. That was 
what I noticed first, and I thought, wait a minute. This isn't what's supposed 
to happen, this isn't Cinderella pushing dolls in carriages in my basement 
playroom on Sunday morning. They never told me about this, that's what was 
crystal clear in my mind. 
I have been lying here now for a day and a half, waiting for the gynecologist, 
Godot, my arm green bruises from the IV the student nurse tried to stick in my 
vessels at least five times unsuccessfully. They won't let me eat or drink or get 
up, just in case I have to be rushed to surgery, it was explained, in case I begin 
hemorrhaging at any moment. And of course, I must lie still to try to save the 
baby. I know there's no baby in my body any longer. I saw the great globs of red 
tissue in the toilet and I told them, but around here, your intelligence and 
powers of observation are directly related to the function of your bodily parts, 
and my body parts are definitely screwing up right now. They were rather 
annoyed I had gotten up to go to the bathroom. 
She's gone. All the dreams I allowed myself for nine weeks gone, too. How 
140 1 Volume 3, Number 1 
stupid. I forgot about retribution. I'm sorry. Sorry about the time I said I didn't 
want children because you couldn't shut them in the basement like the dog. 
Sorry about the morning1 phoned the doctor for the morning after pill, nervous 
anything might interfere with my blossoming career. Sorry that I waited and 
waited, expecting everything to fall into place. Read the thermometer, tem- 
perature right, time right, name the time, name the date, name the baby. 
Talking about gender, a room, furniture, daycare, part-time, happy, excited, 
anticipating.. . 
BOOM! 
I've been lying here for a day and a halfwaiting for the hospital gynecologist 
to come and examine me, so he can then scrape me out and I can go home. It's 
Sunday, and he's probably out with his children, I can't expect him to come 
quickly just because I want to get this over with. But I'm developing a definite 
dislike for the man. Shouldn't they examine me quickly if they really thought 
there was a chance to save the baby? She's not there anyrnore, I know. She's 
floating in the sewer system, flushed away and condemned to dissolving messy 
bit by bit among all the other guck. Good-bye seed, vesicle, embryo, fetus, baby. 
I'm sorry. So sorry. Baby daughter human being little soul. Did you hear the 
Beethoven I played for you? Did you know you were expected on my father's 
birthday? Did you know1 wanted to take you everywhere, teach you everything? 
I'm tired ofwaiting here in this room. The other women are kind. The two 
Gall Bladders passed me some kleenex. They know she's gone, too, despite 
what the nurses say. The Teenaged Mother had her baby, but she won't get out 
ofbed. The nurses make herwalk around. She doesn't want to see the baby and 
the Gall Bladders think it's strange that no one has visited her yet. 
The emergency ward was a nightmare. Never miscarry on Hallowe'en 
Night. They were so busy, witches and mice and pumpkins coming in a steady 
stream of accidents and mishaps. The worst was the girl in the car accident. 
They couldn't get ahold of her parents (I guess) and she lay in the next cubicle 
screaming and screaming in pain, while I writhed and in agony, gave birth to 
my miscarriage, her screams shrieking in my consciousness as each new pain of 
abortive labour coursed through my body, rendering me too shocked to even 
call out. 
I refused the Demoral, refusing to believe the obvious, the ominous, the 
opposite, waiting for someone to phone me with the news, like the parents of 
the girl who lay next to me screaming in pain. My pain, too, all of us, all the 
women, screaming in pain, some of us screaming for the others who simply lay 
there mute, letting each new spasm of pain circulate through a body no longer 
trusted, no longer strong. 
Miscarriage. Now there's a word. Interesting that this one word contains 
the feminine miss. Of course. A woman's body failing to carry. Failing. 
Carrying. Aborting. Spontaneously aborting. Sending out. I didn't want to 
Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 1 141 
Renee Norman 
send you out. I'm sorry. I felt your tinylifelike flutters. I saw the fishlike pictures 
in the books as you developed. You felt real to me already, not a fish, but a little 
person. I'm so sorry. 
I'm so surprised. No one warned me. No one told me my body might act 
like this. No one said it wasn't easy, wasn't smooth-happy-ending. My mother 
never talked about this, never once. Or my aunts. Or any of the women I know. 
I never knew anyone who lost a baby this way. I never heard a story about it once 
in the years I spent growing up to be a woman. Not once when all the women 
gathered up the plates and put the food away. Not once listening to my mother 
talking on the phone, using the odd Yiddish word to keep us off track, which 
only made us more alert and curious. Not once when the aunts came together 
over ritual, birth, death, sickness. Certainly not in Biology 12 Reproduction. 
Very common. Why didn't anyone tell me? Warn me? Tell me about the 
pain, the loss, the dreams dissipating like the fetal tissue as it spewed from my 
traitorous body, with a life ofits own, with a trail ofbloody mass spilling all over 
the floor of my life. 
(All the stage lights go out. In the blackout, a male voice speaks, disgusted.) 
Male Voice: You've aborted the baby. I'm going to push down hard for a 
minute. 
(Thelights go on. The woman is lying the same way, but on a stretcher with 
wheels. The bedpan is gone, and so is the green curtain, replaced by green walls. 
The woman is visibly shaking from the cold, her teeth chattering audibly. The 
doctor walks up beside her, taking off latex gloves.) 
Doctor: You know, they used to do D and C's without anaesthetic. I'll have 
you spick and span, clean as a whistle, in a jiffy. I t  only takes 20 minutes and 
then you're out of here in no time, no worse for wear. Just a minor procedure, 
really. Nothing to worry about. I'll see you in the operating room. 
(The doctor exits. The woman lies there, silent, shaking. Nothing hap- 
pens. She calls out.) 
Woman: I'm cold. So cold. Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? Could you come 
and get me now? Hello? I'm freezing. Could I get a blanket or something? 
Hello? Hello? 
(The lights go out.) 
142 1 Volume 3, Number I 


English

Saving the Baby

MacIntyre, Joyce

Joyce Maclntyre 
Envy 
You danced at the wedding of your first born 
I gently laid one red rose upon my son's grave 
You celebrated the birth of your first grandchild 
your tears proudly proclaimed the 
heir to your name 
My tears fell on empty promises 
and unfulfilled dreams 
You weep for your child's heartache 
you rejoice at his 
triumphs 
I weep for what will never be 
I rejoice for what once was 
You slice the cake to yet another year 
I gently lay a single red rose upon my child's grave 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1.139 


Envy

Hult, Carol

Book Reviews 
relate with our own children. I particularly related to her Jewish upbringing as 
it reminded me of parts of my own. Harriet is a self-confessed worrier, and she 
fights with her husband. For every psychiatrist or psychologist you ever have 
wanted to send to therapy, Harriet does the heart good by freelywriting about 
the times she has dispensed great advice but has not taken it herself. Mother 
dance or family dance, Harriet's dancing is at times like all of ours, fill of good 
intentions and really loud yelling. 
Creating Balance in Your Child's Life 
Beth Wilson Saavedra 
Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Books, 1999 
Reviewed by Carol Hult 
Pressured to help our children adapt to a fast-paced world, we have filled their 
dayswith lessons, sports, and homework But does relentless activity serve their 
best interests? In Creating Balance in Your Child's L$, Beth Wilson discusses 
the importance of including both scheduled and unscheduled time in our 
children's lives. I t  is essential, she writes, to teach our children about balance 
and to allow them "unrushed time" in which to play, imagine, and feed their 
spirits. 
The signs of over-stressed, out-of-balance children are everywhere: stom- - 
achaches, anxiety, shortened attention spans, chronic fatigue. Wilson cites the 
need for children to be offered time to rest and recharge. She says aparent needs 
to "trust the cadence" ofher child's development. Wilson's challenge to me, as 
a mother of three, is to identify and nurture each child's unique strengths. 
T o  help us understand temperament, Wilson offers several tools including 
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. While this personality test is often used in 
educational and corporate settings, it also allows parents to see the vital aspects 
of a child's nature. That knowledge can be applied to decisions made daily on 
the child's behalf: choosing schools and activities, setting TVlimits, structuring 
unhurried time. Rather than defining balance universally, we need to respect 
individual needs. Aquiet, intuitive child who is tuned into the feelings ofothers 
may need small class settings and regular time alone to think things over. A 
lively, extroverted, intellectual child may need plenty of active stimulation but 
also ways to slow down. 
Several chapters explore key components of balance. "Nourishing with 
Nature" describes how a connection to the natural world helps children to 
connect with themselves, with others, and with a higher source. "Communi- 
cation and Balance" discusses the significance of actively listening to our 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 179 
Book Review3 
children. "Building character and Optimism" offers ways to teach empathy, 
courage, humour, and other qualities that instill an essential inner sense of 
power. Another chapter considers ways to create balance in the electronic age. 
The book's strength is not in mining any one area but in covering a wide 
territory. Each chapter offers insight, advice, and resources for further explo- 
ration. As a whole, the bookis an effective catalyst as well as a reference guide 
for busy parents who themselves need more time to pause and reflect. This 
brings me to another desire: for help with my own balance. Perhaps I need to 
turn to Wilson's previous book Restoring Balance t o  a Mother's Busy Lfe.  One 
ofWilsonJs greatest gifts is her focus on mothers as well as children. She knows 
that creating lifestyles that support today's families involves everyone. 
Wilson's voice is compassionate and reahstic. Speaking from experience as 
well as observation, she knows that motherhood is not easy. She understands 
the challenges of raising a spirited child and the desire to help one's child excel 
in a competitive world. But she is wise to question a path that disregards the 
need for rest and rejuvenation and offers a model of parenting that attends to 
our instincts rather than societal pressures. 
Reunion: 
A Year in Letters Between a Birthmother 
and the Daughter She Couldn't Keep 
Katie Hern and Ellen McGarry Carlson 
Seattle: Seal Press, 1999 
Reviewed by Amy Cuomo 
Reunion is a moving account of a relationship between two women who are 
biologically mother and daughter, yet complete strangers. Linked by their joy 
in writing, as well as their biology, the women reveal themselves to one another 
as they begin a process of discovery. Katie Hern and Ellen McGarry Carlson 
are writers whose love of craft is apparent in their letters. Their correspondence 
is humorous, occasionally painful, and uncompromisingly honest. The book 
reads like a finely crafted epistolary novel and gives its audience the furtive 
pleasure ofreading another's mail. Reunion encapsulates theyear in which Katie 
and her birthmother Ellen first make contact after a separation of twenty-six 
years. The letters and emails, which constitute the book, provide the reader 
with extraordinary insight into adoption and tell of their remarkable journey. 
The bookis arranged chronologicallyand begins with Katie's letter ofintroduc- 
tion to her birthmother. The letters are intimate and revealing. The earlyletters 
are particularly provocative and raise the question, 'What do we choose to 
180 1 Volume 3, Number 2 


Creating Balance in Your Child's Life

Bock, Monica

Monica Bock 
Maternal Exposure 
"The Uterus and itsAppurtenances,"Ji.om behind, 1990 (detail). 
Oak table, porcelain dishes, cast silver, lace, blood. 
4"diameter dish. Photo: Monica Bock 
I. 
Well before I had actually given birth, my first major body of artwork- 
as a graduate student at The School ofthe Art Institute of Chicago-was about 
birth. Thinking about family in the context of the debate over abortion, I 
produced a series of mixed media objects that became an installation for my 
1990 MFA exhibition. The centerpiece of the installation, a round oak table set 
with four miniature place settings, was called "The Uterus and Its Appurte- 
nances from Behind." With language and anatomical imagery lifted from my 
mother's anatomy texts, the piece was built on memories of her struggle 
between work and family. Doll plates laid with miniature cast sterling internal 
organs suggested the personal toll behind decorous housekeeping, as well as the 
reality of life consumed in life. The piece came out of knowing that, like my 
mother, my unavoidable need for my own work was coupled with a desire to 
birth and raise children, that I would soon be negotiating the same treacherous 
territory between intimacy and autonomy that she had, and that I would be 
equally torn and driven about it. 
56 / Volume 3, Number l 
"Shadow Wrestling, " 1994 . 
Mahogany, ghcerin soap 
bars, blued steel staples, $ass 
bottle, xold foil, wax, blood, 
amoxici(1in: 4 . 5 " ~  3 . 2 5 " ~  2" 
Photo: Monica Bock 
11. 
In 1993, I gave birth to my daughter at home, and shortlythereafter, made 
a small piece called Shadow Wrestling, using two bars of glycerin soap resting 
on end, face to face on a reliquary stand. Stapled together, the bars encased a 
small vile of my own blood. Originally based on a Theresa of Avila quote about 
"wrestling with the shadow of death," the piece marked my first use ofglycerin 
as a reference to flesh and its vulnerability, and offered itself as a contemplation 
of the impermanence that's felt specifically in looking at one's children. My 
understanding of the piece clarified well after it was made, when I received a 
poem written for it by Zofia Burr, a writer and professor of English at George 
Mason University. W e  met in 1995, when we were both living in Chicago, and 
we started a conversation that gradually turned into an artistic collaboration. 
Our collaboration has lately focused on how the roles of mother and of not- 
mother are part of the same impossible set of expectations confronting women 
who choose to be defined by both work and nurturing. In regard to "the 
maternal body," no woman gets to define herself completely outside the terms 
of good mother/ bad mother - the terms of what it means to take on, tamper 
with or reject the role of the mother as cultural institution. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 57 
Monica Bock 
'ftlfterbirth (Sac Fluid Cord)," 
1998. Cast glycerin, glass 
bottles, amniotic sac, amniotic 
fluid, umbilical cord, 
amoxicillin. 
5"x  42" x 14" 
Photo: Monica Bock 
111. 
Since 1996, when I more or less simultaneously became a full time mother 
and a full time professor of art, my creative research has responded to tensions 
between intimacy and autonomy, nurturing and productivity, family and work. 
My art has become a means of publicly negotiating the terms of motherhood 
as personal experience, social identity and cultural institution. Early in my 
tenure process, and with the example of other mothering artists in academia, 
I realized that my family life would not be recognized as pertinent to my work. 
So, it became imperative to make art with and about my children, in order to 
make our reality known, but also to stay close to them even though halfthe time 
it's the work that preempts my actually being with them. I keep choosing this 
kind of complex and conflicted nurturing with reflection upon nurturing, this 
kind of looking and public revelation of my looking even at what may be 
considered un-motherly to look at. In the summer of 1998, I created a mixed 
media piece called Afferbirfh (Sac Fluid Cord) in which three cast glycerin 
dustpans rest on a shelfwith a glass bottle encased in each oftheir handles. The 
first bottle carries a bit of amniotic sac, the next amniotic fluid, and the last 
umbilical cord - my own children's birth matter that I was able to collect and 
preserve. The piece triggered the conception of a number of objects and 
installations linked by the concept of exposing aspects of family life, life after 
birth as it were. 
58 / Volume 3, Number l 
Maternal Exposure 
'Xfterbirth: Postparturn Miniature," 1999. 
Oak she5 antiyue doily, goldplated cast sterlingfiarne, photograph. 
3.75" x 6.5" x 3.5" Photo: Monica Bock 
IV. 
In Ayerbirth: Postparturn Miniature, a tiny print of a photograph displayed 
in a gold plated silver frame rests on a doily on a small shelf. The image is of my 
son's placenta kept frozen since his birth in 1995. The "portrait" reflects my 
effort to preserve the experience of labor and the memory of new birth, but it 
also calls attention to the power of the placenta itself. Interestingly, more than 
the actual birth material included in for example Ayerbirth (SacFluid Cord), this 
photograph and the word "afterbirth itself have elicited discomfort and even 
outrage from some viewers. Aesthetically composed as this photograph is, I 
understand the image pushes sanitized notions of birth. For me, it represents 
my son, but it also represents my ownership ofthe pregnancy and birth process. 
I own and know this placenta because of my children's home births. Perhaps 
because of the apparent persistence and ease of disseminating textual and 
photographic evocations of the body, or because of the sheer power of naming, 
the word and the image in combination are taken as more dangerous than the 
vulnerable material itself. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 59 
Monica Bock 
"Maternal Exposure 
(or, don't forget 
the lunches)" 
1999-2000 (detail). 
Embossed and 
folded sheet lead and 
cast glycerin bags. 
Bags each approx. 
1 1 " x 5 " x 3 "  
Photo: Monica Bock 
v. 
MatemalExposure (don'tforget the lunches) is inspired by the daily ritual of 
exposing one's children and one's nurturing skills to public scrutiny. The piece 
consists of418 lead sheet bags embossed with the daily menus ofschool and day 
camp lunches I prepared for my two young children over the course of the year 
from January 6 to December 23,1999. The lead bags gather in rows, spreading 
across the floor in the order the original lunches were prepared. Inserted 
intermittently, small lead sheet plaques replace lunch bags and announce the 
days when no lunches were needed-sick days, snow days, holidays. As flesh- 
like counter-parts to the protective yet poisonous lead bags, an equal number 
of cast glycerin soap bags accumulate randomly behind the lead bags. Zofia 
Burr contributes collaboratively to the piece with a series of poems (or poem 
fragments) written in her own hand on the walls surrounding the lunch bags 
(see page 55). 
At a recent opening of the installation in Boston, a viewer related that 
because of the demands of their mothering, a group of artist mothers he knew 
was unable to get together a planned show on the difficulties of being mothers 
and artists. He felt the ambitious scale and solidity of the lunch bag installation 
asserted the accomplishment of the artist despite her motherhood, in contrast 
to the poem's observation that a mother issupposedto allow the time to keep nothing 
ofhergft. I couldn't tellwhether he understood that contrast to be preciselythe 
crux of the maternal dilemma, or whether he believed somehow that "good" 
mothers don't have time to reflect on what they do, much less present art about 
it. Every minute of every day a mother makes an emotional6 fraught choice 
between autonomy and intimacy, and every adultwho reacts to this work carries 
stories of their own about those choices. What is disquieting for some is the 
critical distance on mothering by the mother herself. And it's a risk of a certain 
kind to bring ambivalence forward as the condition of one's mothering and 
one's work. 
60  1 Volume 3, Number l 
Maternal Exposure 
Dedication 
This is for the bad mother in me I love 
wanting to be kept. For 
the Bad mother 1 love - wanting 
(My mother said) 
If you plan to run away, let me know and I'll pack you a lunch, 
if you want to run away, let me know and I'll pack your bag. 
Just be sure 
to send us a postcard. 
Just be sure to let me know. 
The lunch bag is loaded. With coming from home that is her 
carried into the world. That you are returning to. Regarded. 
And what is spoken in the lunch packed and eaten, 
rejected or thrown away, every day a mother is supposed 
to allow the time to keep nothing of. 
Nothing of what you are 
returning 
to loved. 
Nothing of what you are returning. 
A mother is supposed to allow the time to keep nothing of her 
Gift. No return returned. Mother made-made mother- 
no more days off from the world. 
Designed against time. 
T o  be saved Someone is of you on you 
with you you are for. 
Warned. 
A mother is supposed to allow the time 
a mother is supposed to allow the time to keep 
a mother is supposed to allow the time to keep nothing 
a mother is supposed to allow the time to keep nothing of her 
a mother is supposed to allow the time to keep nothing of her gift 
She was nurturing, and violent. She wanted. 
The lunch Bag is loaded. With coming from her. 
-Zojia Burr 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering / 61 


Maternal Exposure

Gustafson, Diana L.

Unbecoming Behaviour: One Woman’s Story of Becoming a Non-Custodial Mother

Dunlop, Rishma

Powell, Gailene

Poems by Rishma Dunlop 
Paintings by Gailene Powell 
Songs Before the Dawn 
I've stitched my dress with continents, 
bound to the equator round my waist. 
I waltz to a steady rhythm, bending slightly. 
-Nina Cassian, "Knowledge" 
The inner - what is it? 
I fnot  intens$ied sky, 
hurled through with birds and deep 
with the winds ofhomecoming. 
-Rainier Maria Rilke 
A Chorus of Wings 
The heart is a feathered thing, 
a kingfisher's wing, 
a dove with a flickering tongue, 
releasing itself, 
in the hollow rumble of 
JournaI ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 21 
Risbma Dunlop and Gailene Powell 
ink-tipped wings, 
plumage brilliant 
in nocturnal flights. 
In this music, 
the valves of the heart 
open and close. 
The beating of wings is a primal music, filling the earth with the music of 
heartbeats, deeply connected to birthings, to the double heartbeats of mother 
and infant in the womb, to the human pulse. Birds are messengers, the holders 
of our prayers, their songs rising before the dawn in invocations and closing our 
days in benedictions. Their wings throb with the joys and mournings of the 
earth, beating a steady rhythm that can be heard across continents. Birds are 
hope and faith, and homecoming, everpresent and steadfast, their wings hurled 
through a violent world. 
22 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the D a w n  
Gailene Powell, "Stillness," l 2 " x  12: oil on canvas. 
Terra Promessa: Elegy for Sarajevo 
Your land 
dismembers itself, 
limb by limb, 
crying for life, 
rough-tongued 
in scarlet 
mouth. 
O n  the other side of the world, 
images of your children haunt me. 
May you taste 
the bitter stain 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 23 
Rishma Dunlop and Gailene Powell 
of the place that cradled you. 
May you feel the blood-spill 
of your people 
salted by my tears. 
May you hear 
the songbirds 
that gather 
may their songs drown 
the screams of vultures, 
beating wings against 
your red sky. 
May these days of carnage 
be softened into dust, 
cleanse the skin 
of your earth. 
May your breath 
be resurrected 
by the human cantos 
of mercy. 
24 / Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
Phoenix 
Hope is the thing withfeathers. 
-Emily Dickinson 
In my garden, 
the poppies have bloomed 
their scarlet tissue paper petals 
falling brilliant to the ground. 
I gather the light of these flowers, 
watch my daughters walk to the beach 
their long limbs flying down the road 
to the sea's embrace. 
In my garden, 
I read the newspaper headlines 
Scent ofpoppies, stench ofdeath. 
Outside Kosovo's capital Pristina 
along the Road to Leskovac 
Makovac, Yugoslavia 
Look closer 
call it the highway to hell. 
As ethnic Albanians 
return home 
this country road 
reeks with the stench 
of death 
from houses 
from mass graves 
in fallow fields 
overgrown 
with multitudes 
of flowers. 
Here is a living room, 
inside, a shroud of ashes 
still shaped like the body of a man 
who was rolled in blankets 
and burned alive. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 25 
Rirhma Dunlop and Gailene Powell 
Here, the wind blows music 
through walls punctured with bullet holes, 
where Serbian police executed men 
while they kneeled, 
their words of prayer caught 
in the stopped pulse 
of the world. 
Here is the house 
used as a chamber of rape 
refugees who returned home 
found dozens of buttons 
ripped from clothes 
alongside bloody blankets 
and women's underwear. 
Here are the cows, 
slaughtered by machine-guns, 
by deliberate hands, 
pistol chambers triggering 
bullets through their heads. 
Their carcasses lie 
among fields of flowers, 
the brilliant wounds of poppies 
and the scent of rotting flesh 
mingling with the perfume 
of crushed lavender. 
Here, is a black quartz watch 
still ticking 
next to a sleeve 
in a mass grave. 
Witnesses say the watch 
was once on a hand 
now eaten away 
by animals 
and everywhere 
in the villages 
under skies full of pitch and smoke, 
women bury their men, 
fathers, husbands, lovers, sons 
26 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
women's labour rinsing away 
the fetid stench, 
scrubbing, scrubbing 
In my garden 
I wonder 
what good are my words 
all the charred utterings of poets 
bearing witness 
in the face of fresh horrors 
how do I speak to my children 
and to my students 
of holocausts and human devastations 
how to speak of the clawmarks of swastikas, 
of the dark hearts we must claim as history 
what will endure of these fragments of verse 
what will reach the heart 
all I can do is record and speak 
and hope that silences will be broken 
that comfort will be sung 
through the obscenities of civilization. 
In my garden 
the sun blazes gold 
and in its fire 
a phoenix rises 
as it will rise over 
the burnt ashes of those fields 
of wildflowers 
and in the beat of bird wings 
hearts will pulse again. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 27 
Rishma Dunlop and Gailene PoweN 
Grace: The Garden of My Familiar 
We exist, given the presence of our familiars. 
-Louise Bogan 
The day opens 
waking us to songs 
multitudes of red-throated birds 
sunlight streams through 
shuttered windows 
In the garden 
the terrace spills 
blooms lush against 
driftwood 
salvage from the beach 
bursts of pinks and corals 
purple embrace of clematis 
and wild plum trees 
a hummingbird drinks nectar 
from the belled tongues 
of hschia 
a scarlet bird hovers 
jewel-like 
in amber air 
I hear the beat of your heart 
in the thrumming 
of its wings 
my daughter Rachel 
presses wildflowers 
on a page of poems 
gifts she writes for me 
as day slips into indigo 
the garden holds us 
in the bowl of her hands 
flesh warm and tender 
rooting us 
in a blue-heron sky. 
28 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
Gailene Powell, "Prayer," 24"x 31 : oil on canvas. 
Prayer 
Let the politician return home to his wife and infant daughter. 
Let him lay his head down upon his wife's silk lap and let him dream. 
Let him dream in blue, the color of his newborn's eyes, tabula rasa. 
Let us hear the cries of the men and women who ache with loneliness. 
Let their mouths be filled with tears and with music. 
Let their solitude be the garments of angels. 
Let the fearful child find an apricot, a starfish, a fistful of rubies. 
Let the mothers and fathers whose children have been murdered 
find boxes of moonlight. 
Let the murderers lay down their weapons. 
Let the taste of blood-oranges flower on their tongues. 
Let the starving have their bellies filled. 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering / 29 
Rishma Dunlop and Gaijene Powell 
Let them have the sweetness of plums. 
Let the bodies of lovers who have become strangers, touch each other 
again. 
Let them have the thrust of love. 
Let it be like the first time, when skin on skin made them transparent, 
coming and melting in the heat of summer. 
Let us have the imperfections of moon and wind and love. 
Let us hear the song 
of the white dove rising 
before the dawn. 
Let the poet have her red shoes. 
Let her have her wet vowels, her breathing consonants, her liturgy of 
syllables. 
Let the poet be the throat of these hours. 
30 I Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
Gailene Powell, "Night Flight," 24"x 18: oil on canvas. 
Night Flight: Winter Solstice 
On the eve of a performance of the Yarker Chamber Music Society 
The Old Schoolhouse, Yarker, Ontario, Dec. 16,2000 
On this night 
the sun melts a scarlet fire 
into the violet and indigo 
of the night sky. 
On this night they say 
the sun will return at midnight 
and the dark hours will lift 
across the trees. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 31 
Rishma Dunlop and Gailene PoweN 
At the Old Schoolhouse 
the Chamber musicians prepare for performances, 
their open tunings, the discordant keenings 
of instruments. 
The words "chamber music" echo hollow 
through my discarded memories, 
an abacus spills through my hair 
burnt cinders fly from my mouth. 
I drift along the edges of time 
and I am a small girl in Montreal, 
my velvet jumper, 
my long black braids tied with ribbons, 
my patent leather shoes, 
in the church hall 
the music solemn, mournful, 
the notes held 
in my mother's rigid backbone, 
her stern spine pinning me into proper place. 
But tonight the moon unwinds her blue 
blesses the babies and friends who gather, 
gary and Rena 
little Hayden in his red flannel shirt 
newborn Zinta, her angel breath. 
And the concert begins, 
Rena's hands flying over the piano, 
James on the flute. 
The air weeps. 
Tonight my long black hair 
is unbound. 
Dressed in my velvet 
I think of you 
my heart loosened in a Pavane, 
cradled by a FaurC Berceuse. 
Outside, the birds 
begin their nocturnal flights 
and tonight 
in this roomful of people 
I know we are all helpless 
32 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
in the face of love 
fragile as the inner flesh of 
a bare wrist. 
In this night music, 
in the symphony of wingbeats, 
the heart lightens and rises. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 33 
Rishma Dunlop and Gailene Powell 
Gailene Powell, "Dancing Cranes," 36"x 72: oil on canvas. 
The Lost Language of Cranes 
For fHirosbima in the morning, after the bomb has fallen, 
Is like a dream, one must ask whose dream it is. 
-Peter Schwenger, Letter Bomb: Nuclear 
Holocaust and the Exploding Word 
Reading with my daughter 
the story of Sadako and the Thousand Cranes 
Rachel loves to tell the story 
of the little Japanese girl 
who is almost two 
when the bomb explodes 
a mile from her home 
in Hiroshima. 
Her family is grateful 
for survival 
spared the grotesque deaths 
of others 
they run 
fleeing to the banks 
of the River Ota 
34 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
drenched by the black rain 
falling, falling 
When she is twelve years old, 
Sadako runs like the wind 
in school relay races 
the best runner in the sixth grade 
until she falters 
weakened 
doctors discover 
Sadako has Atomic Bomb Disease 
leukemia gnaws at her body 
In the hospital, Sadako's closest friend 
reminds her of the Tsuru, the crane 
Japanese symbol of long life 
of hope 
Ifyou fold a thousand cranes 
they willprotect youfiom illness 
grant you a wish 
Sadako tells the cranes 
I will write peace on your wings 
and you w i l l j y  all over the world 
Sadako, determined 
begins folding 
folding fragments of newspapers 
discarded wrappers from her medicines 
making tiny paper cranes 
her gifts to the world, 
folding, folding against time 
and memory 
Sadako's mother writes: 
Ifshe has to sufer like this, 
she should have died that morning 
on August 6". 
Her mother watches Sadako, 
JournaI ofthe Association far Research on Mothering / 35 
Risbma Dunlop and Gailene Powell 
painstaking folding, 
her mother's hands 
helpless to heal 
wants something beautiful 
in the face of death 
she buys silk fabric 
printed with cherry blossoms 
makes a kimono 
to enfold her daughter 
Her small fingers 
folding, folding 
day after day 
Sadako makes 644 cranes 
before she dies 
her classmates complete 
her thousand cranes 
place them in her coffin 
as if her heart would continue 
to beat in the paper wings 
her mother wraps her daughter 
in the softness of silk 
in her cherry blossom kimono 
lays flowers with the birds 
so that her child could bring them 
with her to the next world. 
Sadako's mother asks the birds: 
Why didn'tyou sing? Why didn'tyoufly? 
A cemete y seen from the air is a childi cify. 
-Carolyn ForchC, "The Garden Shukkei-en" 
I watch my daughter and her friends 
folding tiny origami cranes 
for their class project, 
these winged symbols of peace 
36 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
spread rainbow-hued across 
the kitchen table. 
The paper birds criss-cross 
the earth in correspondences 
for peace projects 
their hopeful wings trylng 
to tell the horrors of war 
the cheery optimism of classroom curriculum. 
The children will send 
the paper cranes 
in garlands with 100 birds each 
to the mayor of Hiroshima 
to be 
with millions of paper cranes 
at the foot of the Children's Monument 
where the stone figure of Sadako 
holds a large golden crane 
above her head 
arms outstretched 
to the sky 
I watch my children play 
wonder if the power of birds 
will stand strong against 
exploding words and mushroom clouds 
against the screams that reverberate 
amidst the silence of Hiroshima's Peace Park. 
Ayer I noticed thejash, white clouds spread over the blue sky. 
I t  was as ifblue morning glories had suddenly bloomed.. . 
-Testimony of Isao Kita 
By the banks of the river Ota 
where Sadako used to play 
in the Garden Shukkei-en, 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 37 
Rishma Dunlop and Gailene Powell 
stands a stone angel holding 
an origami crane. 
H&akusha,survivors 
who are still alive 
wander the garden, 
across the pond 
on the Kokoukyo Bridge, 
through tea ceremonies 
and the blossomings 
of plums and cherries and irises 
In the garden 
the silence 
the insistence of memory 
the flash of light, 
the burning heat 
the shattering of glass 
everywhere the cries of children 
calling for their mothers 
bodies stripped naked 
by the blast 
skin peeling 
hanging from fingertips 
like cloth, 
mothers holding 
dying children 
in their arms 
tlylng in vain 
to pluck away 
the swarming maggots 
bones in rice bowls, 
babies crawling 
over dead mothers 
rooting for nipples 
seeking milk 
their reflections shimmering 
like ghosts 
against a clear blue sky, 
flames of fire 
38 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the Dawn 
and then 
black 
sticky rain 
falling, falling 
on trees 
on flowers 
on rooftops 
on people 
the world 
turning black 
it could not be washed off 
. . .Somewhere slow 
poetry is being tender with its a4habet. 
-Don MacKay, "A Morning Song  
Outside my house 
the morning sun spills 
gilded ripples across the bay. 
The cranes stilt across the mudflats. 
I wonder what they know, 
what we have lost, 
these birds that mate for life. 
Sometimes in the shallow waters 
of these wetlands 
the cranes dance, sending waves 
flying, a language of ancient memories 
a language that teaches us that after grief 
it is possible to love again, 
a music we have forgotten, 
such sheer joy. 
When the cranes lift in ascent, 
Journal ofthe Association far Research on Mothering 1 39 
Rishma Dunlop and Gailene Powell 
cathedrals of wind 
rise in their wingbones, 
estuaries of morning light 
lifting across continents, 
a white front of radiance, their cries 
like clouds of desire. 
After, in the presence of still waters, 
you can rest in the white light 
in the grace of wings. 
40 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Songs Before the D a w n  
Gailene Powell, "Concordance," 24"x 40'; oil on canvas. 
Concordance 
The air is a knife 
The sharp intake of winter 
Frost over Ladner farms 
A Diebenkorn landscape 
And the sky full of thunder 
The beat of wings 
hawks, kestrels, geese, starlings 
thousands of birds 
on the Pacific Flyway. 
The continent is heaving 
With the drumming of flight 
to Asia and Africa 
and South America 
my heart skips a beat, shifts 
a lone crane spreads its wings 
hesitates 
and decides to stay. 
Journal oftbeAssociation for Research on Mothering 1 41 
Rishma Dunlop and Gailene PoweN 
Notes 
"Phoenix" 
The line "Scent of poppies, stench of death" is from the title of an article by 
Valerie Reitman in the Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, July 6,1999. 
"Night Flight: Winter Solstice" 
This poem is for gary rasberry, Rena Upitis, Zinta, Hayden, and members of 
the Yarker Chamber Music Society. 
"The Lost Language of Cranes" 
Segments of this poem were informed and inspired by Carolyn ForchC's poems, 
"The Garden Shukkei-en," and "Testimony of Light" in her collection The 
Angel of Histo y. 
Hibakusha: The first atomic bomb used in wartime was dropped on Hiroshima 
on August 6th, 1945, killing between 130,000 and 150,000 people by the end 
of that year. The term hibakusharefers to survivors of the Atomic Bomb. Those 
who survived the bombing are rapidly aging now after struggling for many 
years. Segments of this poem are informed by the testimonies collected and 
videotaped by the Hiroshima Peace and Culture Foundation to commemorate 
the International Year of Peace in 1986. 
Excerpts referring to Sadako Sasaki's mother, Fujiko Sasaki, are based on a 
letter titled "Come Back to Me Sadako," from RecordofAomic Bombs in Japan 
by Seishi Toyota, Nihon Tosho center, 1991. 
When Sadako died on Oct.25, 1955, her classmates folded the missing paper 
cranes to make a thousand and placed them in the coffin with Sadako's body. 
Since then the paper crane has become an international symbol of nuclear 
disarmament. 
Sadako's friends and classmates collected Sadako's letters and writings and 
published them under the title Kokeshi, after the name of a doll they had given 
Sadako in the hospital. Inspired by this collection and the remarkable effect 
Sadako's story had on others, Eleanor Coerr wrote the powerful book, Sadako 
and the Thousand Paper Cranes, G. P. Putnam, 1993. A video by the same title 
is narrated by Liv Ullman, produced by the American Library Association. 
Sadako's classmates also began a national campaign to build a monument in her 
memory. I t  was built to honor all children who suffered from the devastating 
consequences and effects of the nuclear bomb. The Statue of Sadako is also 
known as The Children's Monument. Built in 1958 with donations from 
school children, the monument stands in the center of Hiroshima's Peace Park 
42 / Vohme 3, Number 2 
Songs Bt$ore the Dawn 
surrounded by millions ofpaper cranes sent from people around the world. At 
its base is a plaque with the following inscription: 
This is our cry 
This is our prayer 
Peace in the world 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 43 


Songs Before the Dawn

Contributor Notes

Clews, Brenda

Brenda Clews 
The Notebook of 
the Maternal Body 
Here it is a question of writing in language of a foreclosure that 
institutes language itself: How to write in such a way thatwhat escapes 
the full force of disclosure and what constitutes its displacement can 
be read in the gaps, fissures, and metonymic movements of the text? 
-Judith Butler (1993: 197-8) 
My body's an empty shuddering sac, 
mammoth, aching, sweating on the bed in the 
sheets in which we live day and night. 
The maternal body is taboo. 
A rotund, mountainous mother, 
cradling my baby to these swollen breasts. 
A maternal rhythm of blood 
and milk flows.. . 
I have lost my contours. I do not know 
whose body I inhabit. 
20 1 Volume 3, Number l 
While many of us may not feel 
comfortable with our bulky bodies, 
our bodies that do not reflect the 
male "anima," that are de-sexed 
(although pregnant women are 
highly orgasmic), that do not portray 
the svelte, sporty, independent- 
seeming "woman" so emblazoned on 
our collective psyche, while most of 
us may feel awkwardly elephantine 
and yet buried in the obscuring 
enculturated mirrors, we must rise 
from those depths with our mam- 
moth bodies, bodies producing and 
sustaining life, and celebrate. 
Morphogenesis: Giving form to 
what has been construed as formless, 
fearful, even chaos-producing, and 
therefore hidden not just behind 
planes of mirrors, walls, but behind 
embarrassments. 
A morphology of the maternal? As if 
it were a terrain ... 
A hidden terrain of which there are 
only sightings, hints.. . 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering 1 21 
Brenda Clews 
. .."having released our minds from 
subjection to a neutral symbolic, we 
had released the power of the 
maternal.. ." 
"the presence of a female source of 
value . . . [yet] there is the danger of 
representing it as a female duplicate 
of the authority of male origin." 
(The Milan Women's Bookstore 
Collective, 1990:lll) 
That huge belly poking into the 
world, walking down the street, 
sitting at the dinner table, the puffed 
face above it, surrounded, limited, 
contained by embarrassments, by 
discretions, by polite talk of forth- 
coming motherhood/babies, by 
ironic stories of parenting that 
attempt to distance and somehow 
taint or degrade the experience, to 
contain the uncontainable, to de- 
potentiate the power of the woman 
whose womb carries the embryo of 
the world in it. T o  force her away 
from her own experience: her own 
body/her own language. 
We are left utterly changed on the 
other side of it, whether we have one 
child or a stream of them, we never 
return. But you find that while you 
have no words to describe this in- 
itself and for itself, you do have a 
sharing with other women, an often 
The chatter of mothers, sharing the unarticulated mutual understanding. 
work of raising the world, is not in 
the texts, is banished from the 
canon, is an other discourse hidden 
from the acts of cultural memory. It  
is not found in important conversa- 
tion. 
22 1 Volume 3, Number l 
The Notebook of the Maternal Body 
"They were not inclined," adds 
Martins, "to disturb the past which 
brought feelings of sadness and 
depression." One elderly woman told 
her, "If I can't tell the whole truth 
I'd rather not tell the story." We can 
therefore imagine a second narrative, 
running alongside these stories and 
in counterpoint to them, in which 
the women either have not found 
accommodating strategies for their 
anger and pain, or in which they've 
accommodated so much that their 
voices have been suppressed alto- 
gether. This second narrative is an 
important one to remember when 
reading these stories, indeed, it is an 
echo that informs all Western 
literature, a gap in the cultural text 
we've inherited, the background 
against which the mother story must 
be constructed." (Di Brandt, 
1993:145) 
into the folds 
There is a "woman's world" 
where a man can never enter. The 
world of the mothers. I t  is a world 
whose existence I was completely 
unaware of before becoming a 
mother. Even during my first 
pregnancy I noticed how I was being 
"accepted into" "included in." This 
level of interconnectedness between 
other mothers and me, who was 
about to become one, was something 
that never occurred before. Bearing a 
child into the world is an initiation 
into 
into "that" world 
ofwomen who are mothers 
who know who have an interconnec- 
tion that is based on the experience 
of motherhood who have a language 
that refers to it so much unsaid yet 
felt in the speech ofwomen between 
women it is a comforting world 
where you, your tiredness, your joy 
exists empathetic not threatening or 
judgmental a sharing so few words 
for it 
Journal ofthe Assoriation for Research on Mothering 1 23 
Brenda Clews 
"Zizek argues that the "subject" is 
produced in language through an act 
of foreclosure ... What is refused or 
repudiated in the formation of the 
subject, set outside by the act of 
foreclosure which founds the subject, 
persists as a kind of defining nega- 
tivity. The subject is, as a result, 
never coherent and never self- 
identified precisely because it is 
founded, and, indeed, continually 
refounded, through a set of defining 
foreclosures and repressions that 
constitute the discontinuity and 
incompletion of the subject." 
(Butler, 1993:189-90) 
What is it that the mother is saying 
in her speaking of frustration, 
exhaustion, a speaking that always 
dwindles into incoherence and 
silence? 
Are there simply massive and 
- 
internalized social controls against 
this speaking? 
membranes and folds 
24 1 Volume 3, Number l 
The Notebook ofthe Maternal Body 
membranes and folds 
placental nutrients building the first 
cells 
The primary enfolding 
of the brain 
- embedded 
like living sea coral 
nourished on breast milk 
The maternal encoded in 
the membranes of the brain 
archaic layers 
imprinted with life's 
earliest experiences 
The first structuring 
principle organizing 
the folding and folding 
over and over until 
its creativity, impetus into 
form, is forgotten ... 
Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 1 25 
Brenda Clews 
References 
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter. Boston: Routeledge. 
Brandt, Di. 1993. Wild Mother Dancing. Manitoba: University of Manitoba. 
The Milan Woman's Bookstore Collective. 1990. Sexual Dtfference. Indiana: 
Indiana University Press. 
26 1 Volume3, Number l 


The Notebook of the Maternal Body

Renee Norman 
Hannah's Child 
would have been precocious 
female of course 
chattering away in German &English 
before she let go of Hannah's desktop 
to try walking 
would have learned to scribble 
quietly 
while Mamala worked 
filling papers with the dizzying marks 
that fenced out a distance 
loved 
of course she would have been 
a child of the republic 
a light ahead of the dark times behind 
more at ease with adults 
whispering to her teddy 
about Aunt Mary's blueberry pancakes. 
until she begged again 
to hear the story of the Holocaust 
a family album of never forget 
this page Buba Martha 
sounding strict 
110 / Volume 3, Number 2 
turn over to someone named Walter Benjamin 
the sad pallor of suicide 
in the tone of voice 
a puzzle 
when she pointed to a framed picture 
of Uncle Martin on the desk 
&in the way that children can 
imaged a second picture there 
in her mother's measured reply 
black & shadowy like a silhouette 
*Aunt Mary is Mary McCarthy 
Uncle Martin is Martin Heidegger 
Buba Martha is Martha Arendt, Hannah Arendt's mother 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering 1 111 


Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

Not a member yet

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Envy

Creating Balance in Your Child's Life

Maternal Exposure

Unbecoming Behaviour: One Woman’s Story of Becoming a Non-Custodial Mother

Songs Before the Dawn

Contributor Notes

The Notebook of the Maternal Body

Hannah's Child

Impact of Children on Mothers' Activism and ViceVersa: Insights from an Examination of Oral Histories with Israeli Mothers, Summer 1999

1,574

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