I wrote the poem, ‘miscarriage’, some twenty years after the loss of two babies in early pregnancy. The writing helped me understand why I felt under-supported on each occasion, and why my grief remained acute despite the time that had elapsed.
This poem is an attempt to reveal this shadow in my life. My hope is that it will resonate with other women who have experienced the silencing that too often accompanies the loss of a baby to miscarriage
Brenda Downing is a writer and feminist autoethnographic researcher. She lives by the Indian Ocean in Perth, Western Australia. She is interested in exploring culturally silenced topics and writing from embodied perspectives. Her PhD thesis, Feeling the fleshed body: The aftermath of childhood rape was awarded the Edith Cowan University Faculty Research Award 2014 and jointly awarded the Magdalena Prize for Feminist Research 2014.
