Birth Chart

de Rachel Feder

"As heartfelt in its care for people and words as it is unsparing in its critical gaze, Birth Chart rethinks the relationship between astrology and motherhood. Rachel Feder asks, if astrology constellates the universe around the moment of one's birth, then how might it serve as shorthand for a vast number of personal experiences and cultural phenomena? How might it speak to and of friendship, motherhood, authorship, the mysteries of literary history, and the wonders of watching a child come into language? Across four sections, including a serial poem in sustained conversation with the modernist poet H.D., Feder's references range from group texts to the Talmud to 90s song lyrics. In her hands-and her inimitable yet familiar, often straight-up funny voice-astrology is less a means of explaining the world than of communicating, of capturing a feeling, of sealing a bond. The result is an equally sentimental and sardonic collection in which "The language of explanation is a heart emoji. / It means you know what I mean." And we do"--