Hemisphere: Poems

Winner, 2015 Seven Sisters Book Award for Poetry

The poems in Hemisphere explore what it means to be a daughter and what it means to bear new life. Ellen Hagan investigates the world historical hemispheres of a family legacy from around the globe and moves down to the most intimate hemisphere of im-pending motherhood. Her poems reclaim the female body from the violence, both literal and literary, done to it over the years. Hagan acknowledges the changing body of a mother from the strains of birth--from the growing body of a child, to the scars left most visibly by a C-section--as well as the changes wrought by age and, too often, abuse. The existence of a hemisphere im-plies a part seeking a whole, and as a collection, Hemisphere is a coherent and cogent journey toward reclamation and wholeness.