JV Birch

J V Birch lives in Adelaide. Her poems have been published in anthologies, journals and magazines across Australia, the UK, Canada and the US. She has three chapbooks with Ginninderra Press - Smashed glass at midnight, What the water & moon gave me, A bellyful of roses - and a full-length collection, more than here. She blogs at www.jvbirch.com.

Response to creative prompt: "When I look in the mirror, I see..."

I have endometriosis, which is the focus of the first two poems, ‘Rivers’ and ‘Family affair’, with the latter also being about other conditions we can inherit. My chapbook, A bellyful of roses, explores endometriosis in more detail and the impact it has had, and continues to have. The last poem, ‘Nothing to wear’, is about depression, which has affected my family and I on many levels. I found the prompt useful, because when we look at the self, it reminds us how we are the sum of different things.