An eerie, wild and beautifully dark collection of poem around womanhood, birth and motherhood. I liked all of the poems and the themes chosen, the forest and animalistic illustrations used to define womanhood and cycles. It is beautifully written, all of them, and sometimes unsettling. I'll totally recommend it to my audience.

The Uterus is an Impossible Forest shows what motherhood and womanhood is like through body horror and spirituality. The poems shows how many of not most women feel when it comes to things women experience on a daily basis. These poems get you thinking, “I’m not the only one who feels like this.”

Thank you to RDS and NetGalley for the arc.

A raw poetry collection that deals with themes of womanhood, motherhood and birth. The collection is cohesive, with forest imagery, wolves, caves and blood running throughout. Some poems feel like dark fairytales, others are outright horror. Reminded me somewhat of Louise Glück's 'Gretel in Darkness'. I found myself sitting in the car reading aloud, not on purpose. Not only does this collection embody many universal experiences of women, it also speaks to and references other texts and poetry, I ended up with a list of other things to read.
Thanks to the publisher for this ARC!

This is an incredibly visceral book of poems based on womanhood. The author puts certain experiences into words that many of us feel but would struggle to explain, and she does it in a way that is lyrical as well as real.

The Uterus is an Impossible Forest grabbed my attention with its title and the poetry within does not disappoint. This is a unique collection of poetry about womanhood with lots of witchy vibes. Would especially recommend to fans of Kiki Rockwell and vice versa.

As a woman, certain questions and feelings are universal, and they are usually the ones that feel most private. Our deep connections to our bodies, our minds, and the world around us have made many women suffer throughout history, for knowing too much (witches) or not 'delivering' (any wife of Henry VIII).

Do I want to be a mother? How do I feel about my own mother? Is being a woman to feel shame with no purpose? What does the history of women in my family mean for me? Am I crazy? Is this thing inside me really going to become a person? How do I do this? What does it mean to be a mother? Will I survive to be a mother? Can I be a mother? Am I simply a vessel? Have all women been cursed since the creation of the story of Eve? Should I relate so much to The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Vegetarian by Han Kang, I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman?

These and more are covered in the poetry in this collection, which I recommend to all women who have ever had any of these thoughts. Some of these poems will stick with me for quite some time.

Haunting, eviscerating, spellbinding, and carnal. An evocative poetry collection that confronts aspects of motherhood/womanhood through the lens of body horror and spirituality. This work is divinely female, covering themes of hunger, desire, shame, religious guilt, bodily autonomy, female rage, and mythology. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath while reading this. A clever use of line breaks, imagery, repetition, and brackets. For fans of Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado and Vertigo & Ghost by Fiona Benson. Propulsive in its intensity; Kearns has an unwavering voice that refuses to go unheard.