"Window for a Small Blue Child" is the story of the poet's experience of in vitro fertilisation, a sequence of poems underscored by the seasons and by the biological clock of a woman in her forties as she navigates the risks and choices, the drugs and rituals of fertility treatment. In a voice which moves between narrative and image, between lyrical experience and medical text she explores what it is to be engaged with a technique so much of which is enacted in a woman's body yet which takes its name from forty-eight hours of events in a lab. In the contemporary fairy tale of IVF science and nature interact, bodies become maps, but who is telling the story? In these poems, windows may open into gardens or bodies or dreams, and folk tales jostle with the images of science: its scans and procedures, the labs and Petri dishes which might or might not cradle a future child.

About the Author
Gerrie Fellows was born in New Zealand but now lives in Scotland. She trained as a painter at art schools in London and before working in various countries as a life model, a secretary and a writer in residence. Her previous poetry collections include The Duntroon Toponymy (pamphlet, 2001), The Powerlines (2000) and Technologies and Other Poems (1990). Her work has also featured in several anthologies, including Intimate Expanses: XXV Scottish Poems 1978-2002, Scotlands: Poets and the Nation and Modern Scottish Women Poets.

Reviews
'Though her work is often eloquent and moving, Gerrie Fellows is not afraid to be austere, and she is never tempted by mere effect. Reading Window for a Small Blue Child, we discover a poet who understands that bodies are both magical and treacherous, and she illuminates both the magic and the treachery in lyrics of grace, restraint and a spare, but very persuasive beauty.' - John Burnside



Book Information
ISBN 9781857548884
Author Gerrie Fellows
Format Paperback
Page Count 64
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd