Poem of the Week | August 01, 2022
“newborn” by Heidi Seaborn
This week’s Poem of the Week is “newborn” by Heidi Seaborn.
Heidi Seaborn is author of [PANK] Poetry Prize winner An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, the acclaimed debut Give a Girl Chaos and Comstock Chapbook Award-winning Bite Marks. Recent work in Blackbird, Beloit, Brevity, Copper Nickel, Cortland Review, diode, Financial Times of London, The Offing, Penn Review, Radar, The Slowdown and elsewhere. Heidi is Executive Editor of The Adroit Journal and holds an MFA from NYU. heidiseabornpoet.com
newborn
the BBC says we are bordering
on another cold war
& outside a surprise
snowfall cloaking
steeple & square
the few footsteps to scurry
a loaf of bread for
breakfast I hunger for
certainty eggs in the fridge
the weather report
says flu-
like symptoms the price
of oil ricocheting
the snow still
born during arming
I know there was violence
in the far dark
woods of my childhood
the race
to power power
powder
& now hello you
born during a nuclear
warning warning
warming
war in the far
country far
away maybe
I see each daffodil
trumpet
willing winter gone
geese bleating
the cry of a newborn
to distract &
attract like
a magnificent force
all those atoms
accumulating into
you
Author’s Note
It was February 17th, the talk of war was everywhere, that Russia was about to invade Ukraine, and it could lead to another cold war. We had an unexpected snow that morning as I sat at my desk listening to the news, but also waiting for news that my first granddaughter had been born. Everything felt uncertain. The poem surfaced from that uncertainty. The war news triggered my memory of the past, of growing up with the threat of nuclear war with Russia. And yet, here was this new life, imminent too. The poem is processing the past, war and birth. When my granddaughter arrived early the next morning, it felt like a delicate counterpoint to the war—a beautiful new life powering hope.
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