Induction: poems for my new daughter by Colleen Alles

The bond between mother and daughter engenders a wealth of feelings—love and joy, of course, but also at times fear, melancholy, and the realization of its tenuous and temporary nature. Tapped from such wealth, Alles provides readers with riches galore, as these intimate and generous poems track a young mother’s journey from pregnancy (“your body in my body”), through the birth itself (“reordering / in the process / my beautiful life”), to the recognition of motherhood’s give-and-take, its familial brevity (“Share her with me for just the longest / of times.”). Anyone who’s had a mother—and who of us hasn’t!—will find something valuable, something to treasure, in this collection.

–Phillip Sterling, Author of And Then Snow

These poems enter into the physical-spiritual bond of a mother and her new daughter, exploring with humor and wonder the unfolding complexity of motherhood in the small, exquisite moments of each day. With tenderness and precision, Alles invites us to be present now, now, and now.

–Kristin Brace, Poet, Executive Director of the Grand Rapids Creative Youth Center