Emily Patterson

The Birth of Undoing
by Emily Patterson
ISBN: 978-1-962405-30-0 $16.00
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ISBN 978-1-962405-31-7

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Hear Emily read from The Birth of Undoing: https://youtu.be/pTR5s6IE-i0

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Patterson’s poetry appears in Christian Century, SWWIM Every Day, North American Review, CALYX, The Penn Review, Cordella Magazine, NELLE, and elsewhere. She is the author of three chapbooks, including So Much Tending Remains (Kelsay Books, 2022), To Bend and Braid (Kelsay Books, 2023), and haiku at 5:38 a.m. (Bottlecap Press, 2024). Her work has been recognized and honored by Sundress Publications, Sweet Lit, and Whale Road Review, and her poem “Small is the Seed” (Tyger Tyger Magazine, 2024) was set to music by composer Katerina Gimon and premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2025. Emily received her B.A. in English from Ohio Wesleyan University, where she was awarded the Marie Drennan Prize for Poetry, and her M.A. in Education from The Ohio State University. She is a curriculum designer for Highlights for Children and lives with her family in Columbus, Ohio. Read more at emilypattersonpoet.com.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Emily Patterson’s The Birth of Undoing chronicles the making of a mother. In tender yet unsparing poems, this collection captures one family’s journey through infertility, pregnancy, and early parenthood. Both deeply personal and universal in its themes, The Birth of Undoing gives voice to varying facets of being a mother and woman—from loss and longing to wonder and joy. Throughout these poems, Patterson brings her full experience to the page, whether in unspoken conversations in the fertility clinic waiting room; seeking solace in nature from postpartum depression; or perceiving the smallest details anew through the eyes of her daughter. In lyrical and accessible language, Patterson offers a clear-eyed portrayal of the complexities of becoming and being a parent in our world.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“See,” Emily Patterson writes, “this is what I thought it meant / to be a woman: one who bears, / not one who wants.” In The Birth of Undoing, Patterson’s gorgeously vulnerable poems take us through infertility and IVF, pregnancy and birth, postpartum depression and maternal wonder. These poems explore the lingering effects of infertility and the many layers of motherhood. Whatever your relationship to parents and parenting, you’re going to love this book.
––Katie Manning, editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review, author of Hereverent and Tasty Other

 The longing in Emily Patterson’s poetry collection The Birth of Undoing is for a child and a better world for that child. This lyric memoir centers a mother’s anxieties and pleasures, while the story arc includes moments of high tension. I held my breath while reading some of the poems and then rested in moments of linguistic beauty. The child, community of women, and nature-based spirituality weave hope between moments of depression and external fear. Life becomes more vivid through the lens of motherhood in these poems.
  ––Chloe Yelena Miller, co-founder of Brown Bag Lit, author of Viable and Perforated