Fruit Geode

Poetry. Women's Studies. In Alicia Jo Rabins' second collection, FRUIT GEODE, the terrifying power of maternal love coexists with sorrow for the loss of one's younger self. In lyrical, unflinching poems, Rabins investigates the passages of pregnancy, birth, and early infancy through a constellation of ancient and modern experience: Sumerian storm demons, astronauts, herbal medicine, Neanderthal DNA, Jewish mysticism, climate change. In tracing the ritual mysteries of motherhood, FRUIT GEODE examines what it means to be transformed, to leave behind our certainties and walk into the unknown. ''I regard my former life / With a distant affection, / As an astronaut / Looks through a porthole / At the small green planet / Where she used to live,'' writes Rabins. This is a book about what it means to live in a human body, how love changes us, and what we pass on from one generation to the next.