Wet Apples, White Blood

Naomi Guttman's new poetry collection was inspired by the role of nursing in human evolution and culture. The first cycle of poems, 'Wet Apples, White Blood,' offers lyric glimpses into archetypes of breastfeeding women in history and myth. The dramatic action in the second cycle, 'Galactopoesis,' centers around the experience of a mother whose young child is hospitalized. Galactopoesis is the medical term for the continued secretion and production of milk. It derives from the Greek radicals for 'milk' (galacto) and 'making' (poesis), which is also 'poetry.' In Wet Apples, White Blood, nursing, as a constant creative act dependent on the baby's demand, is a trope for the creative process and for questions of biology, psychology, and spirituality.