Shortest Stories

A midwife writes birth haiku on each beginning

In this quietly powerful collection, midwife Janelle Alier captures the fleeting, transformative moments of birth through the elegance of haiku. Written in reflection after attending more than one hundred births, these seventeen-syllable poems offer a powerful record of beginnings.

This book is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.