Drawing Down a Daughter

Claire Harris slices through the boundaries of poetry and prose in this powerful volume, offering a window into the experiences of friendship, love, pregnancy, and motherhood. Spanning a few days and several decades, Drawing Down a Daughter follows a woman-dreamer as she prepares to give birth to a daughter. As she waits for her husband, she talks to her child through dreams, journals, letters, and stories. These musings, both poetic and laden with story, touch on the history of slavery, exile, and expatriation and the co-existence of beauty and horror. All of this, and more, form a compelling narrative and a potent contribution to the literature of identity and consciousness.