Ruth Ellen Kocher

Nov 30, 2023 | poetryfoundation.org | Ruth Ellen Kocher |Rebecca Frank

By Ruth Ellen Kocher “i begin with ocean / floating in the free space of my ribs / somewhere between / ursa major and ursa minor.” So opens Ruth Ellen Kocher’s gripping eighth collection, godhouse, which examines the forces that shape the life of a Black woman raised by a white family: “i begin as a side bet / a detour into cosmos / via the elliptical path of my thumbprint.” In the pointedly named “cephalogenesis,” the speaker’s grandmother calls her mother “whore”; in contrast, the speaker...