Her Birth

In 2007 Rebecca Goss's newborn daughter Ella was diagnosed with Severe Ebstein's Anomaly, a rare and incurable heart condition. She lived for 16 months. 'Her Birth' is a book-length sequence of poems beginning with Ella's birth, her short life and her death, and ending with the joys and complexities that come with the birth of another child. Goss navigates the difficult territory of grief and loss in poems that are spare, tender and haunting.