A Brief History of Accidental Inventions: Poems Volume 47

A Brief History of Accidental Inventions explores the emotionally fraught territory of pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood. By equal measures harrowing and humorous, the collection chronicles the speaker’s freefall into postpartum depression against the backdrop of American gun culture and the repeal of Roe v. Wade. The poems peer keenly into texts from Kristeva to Kim Kardashian’s Instagram account as the speaker searches for clarity in her new role as a mother. With a voice both lyrical and brash, Craft confronts challenges of embodiment and violence alongside the overwhelming experience of maternal love.

21st Century Poets, No. 47

Dorsey Craft is the author of A Brief History of Accidental Inventions, Plunder (Bauhan 2020), and two chapbooks. Plunder was the winner of the 2020 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Copper Nickel, Pleiades, Ploughshares, POETRY Magazine, and elsewhere. Her work has received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Anderson Center at Tower View, and Yaddo. She holds both an MFA in Poetry from McNeese State University and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from The Florida State University. Craft teaches at the University of North Florida and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Agni.