Terhi K. Cherry
Feed It to the River, Terhi K. Cherry’s exquisite new chapbook, is like nothing I’ve ever read. The saga of the author’s determined quest for motherhood as the years speed by, “You wiped your face from a romance, walked to the edge of forty, alone, as if it were a cliff.” Cherry fantasizes life as a mother while the counterpoint, her complicated relationship with her own mother, stands as a cautionary tale of what not to do. A remarkable achievement.
~ Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of Junkie Wife, (Moon Tide Press) Erotic: New & Selected, (NYQ Books), poetry editor, Cultural Daily
Feed it to the River by Terhi K. Cherry invites the reader into the rapids of longing for a child, loss after loss. In opening her womb to doctors, to the rawness of the body exposed in demeaning conditions and situations, she remembers her mother’s suffering from whom she may “carry the roots” of miscarriage. While some poems throb with despair, this reader was left with a reverence for life that Cherry creates with remarkable language and detail that reaches the heights necessary to endure, guided by the knowledge we are made of stars, however we go. Every mother and daughter should read this book, along with those who love them.
~ Perie Longo, PhD, LMFT, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Emerita, author of Baggage Claim (WordTech Editions)
In Feed It to the River, Terhi K. Cherry tills the grief of infertility, digging deep for its roots in a family legacy of endometriosis and wide in the communal losses of other women with their unfulfilled cravings for motherhood, bringing forth a garden of poems verdant and brave in their vulnerability. Everywhere nature mirrors her losses, answering her litanies of possible faults with its inherent pragmatism, even the falling rain opens its mouth to the sea as if singing, “it was nothing you did.” Feed It to the River reminds us that at the river’s edge on the other side of grief, we may meet ourselves anew.
~ Elya Braden, author of Open The Fist and The Sight of Invisible Longing (Finishing Line Press)
Feed It to the River challenges the culture of silence around pregnancy loss. The poems depict a sisterhood in the struggle – women obsessing about motherhood over cycle tracking, peeing on sticks, and fertility spells. Facing social pressures to bloom before the clock winds down, the poet seeks answers to her miscarriage and explores the personal origin story with her own mother. All the while chrysanthemums in her childhood garden, and rivers born of this earth, speak the language of loss.
SELECTED & FORTHCOMING
As I Descend, My Mother Calls a Taxi - Thimble Literary Magazine (Sept, 2022)
Troubleshooting Loss - SWWIM Every Day (Sept 2, 2022)
Horse Girl Hanging - TIMBER (Summer 11.2, 2021)
The Night I Sleep in the Nursery - Literary Mama (July/Aug 2021)
When Are You Having Children? - Rogue Agent (June 1, 2021)
Perhaps the Life I'll Never Have - Un(mother) Anthology (May 23, 2021)
How to Save a Meringue - Un(mother) Anthology (May 23, 2021)
There Will Be a Day You Meet Yourself at the River's Edge - Un(mother) Anthology (May 23, 2021)
Driving Through Death Valley - Cultural Weekly (Feb 25, 2021)
At Denny's - Cultural Weekly (Feb 25, 2021)
A Woman Alone - Vox Viola Literary Magazine (Issue 2, 2020)
A Gaping Wound - Vox Viola Literary Magazine (Issue 2, 2020)
In Superposition - The Wild Word (Issue 49, 2020)
Entanglement - ONTHEBUS (Issue 24, 2020)
PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATED POEMS
Driving Through Death Valley - Cultural Daily (2021)
Feed It to the River - Moon Tide Press (2022)
Terhi K. Cherry's debut chapbook Feed It to the River is now available from Moon Tide Press. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her work appears in SWWIM Every Day, TIMBER, Rogue Agent, Literary Mama, Un(mother) Anthology & Film, and elsewhere. Terhi lives in Los Angeles and facilitates poetry for personal growth.
@terhikcherry
Video Poems
When Your Aging Mother Reveals Her Endometriosis in Passing
When Your Aging Mother Reveals Her Endometriosis in Passing
The poem appeared in the Un(mother) film/digital art piece, born from a Growing Poetry project, and showcased as part of Brighton Fringe festival (May-June 2021). The Un(mother) film and anthology amplify the voices of all women who do not have children: from those who chose this path, to women whose bodies or circumstances made that choice for them. The film is now available to watch on YouTube.