The Baby Book

At twenty-seven, Robin Silbergleid decided to become a single mother by choice; The Baby Book depicts her long struggle to build her family through assisted reproductive technology. It is a bold, multi-voiced narrative of reproductive choice, including infertility treatment, recurrent miscarriage, and high-risk pregnancy.

Robin Silbergleid is the author of several books and chapbooks, including In the Cubiculum Nocturnum (Dancing Girl Press, 2019) and the memoir Texas Girl (Demeter 2014);  she is also co-editor of Reading and Writing Experimental Texts: Critical Innovations (Palgrave 2017).  Currently, she lives in East Lansing, Michigan, where she teaches and directs the Creative Writing Program at Michigan State University.  Her collection The Baby Book was published by CavanKerry in 2015.

It is impossible to read just one poem from Robin Silbergleid’s new collection. . . . As the book’s speaker endures obstacles on the path to parenthood, readers develop an intimacy with the narrative, and an appreciation for how the poet captures surreal elements of clinical scenes and their accompanying vernacular. With the emotional depth of a novel, and the poignancy of memoir, Silbergleid has created a testament to the human spirit, and a poetry collection that is truly unforgettable.
— Mary Biddinger, author of A Sunny Place with Adequate Water

Sophisticated and gripping, this depiction of a single woman’s experience of donor insemination, miscarriage, and birth is a major accomplishment. This artistic response to a common but little discussed human experience is powerful and moving. The Baby Book is at once evocative and informative; it takes the literature on pregnancy loss to a whole new level.
— Linda Layne, author of Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America and producer of Motherhood Lost: Conversations

Robin Silbergleid’s The Baby Book is a relentless, fierce examination of miscarriage, loss, pregnancy, and labor that is both a commentary on modern medicine as well as a timeless reflection on motherhood, grief, and desire. A brutal and resilient narrative! I hope that this book creates much-needed dialogues.
— Julianna Baggott, author of This Country of Mothers

November 2015
132 pp
Trade paper – 6 X 9.25
$16
978-1-933880-58-7
LaurelBooks