"I had a poem about my uterus..."

My poem called "My Uterus Didn't Wander" is in this anthology edited by K.A. Laity and H. Byron Ballard, and I thought I'd explain why I wrote such a strange poem that ended up being included in a wonderfully strange book. I've always been amused by the concept of the wandering uterus, the ancient idea that if a woman was out of sorts, her uterus is to be blamed because it has gotten out of its place. It's akin to the blaming everything on PMS. The woman is "hysterical."

I teach a short story called "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in my English 102 class, and it features a woman with postpartum depression who is put on bed rest and forbidden to write as a cure. Let's just say that doesn't work out well. She starts seeing women trapped in the wallpaper. In my poem, in part, I also look back at women who felt trapped: my birth grandmother and my adoptive grandmother -- but that is only part of the story.

I also write about my own pregnancy loss and stillbirth experiences, about my hysterectomy and about my changing body at 52, and there is pain and humor in the process of growing older, which all women can relate to eventually.

My poem is only one of the many pieces of writing from women who have traveled all around the world and have traveled deep into their own psyche to bring back a tale of their pilgrimage.

The artwork designed for the book by SL Johnson is available on posters, notecards, magnets, t-shirts, buttons, and more, and proceeds go to a women's shelter.

You can get your copy of the book here!