About the Poems - DA
About the Poems
by Deborah Ager In these poems, I'm aiming to play badminton with words. "Papoose" and "Before She Was Born" are partly about my daughter. The latter poem was inspired, in part, by a 4D ultrasound in which I could see what my daughter would look like while she was still in the womb. The former poem was based upon the experience of carrying my daughter down a mountain. I wrote "Acarophobia" at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in February 2009 after I was injured in a ping pong accident by my ping pong partner. In the way that art happens, the poem has nothing to do with ping pong or partners or serious injuries.