Objective: The purpose of this investigation was to assess the incidence of serious childbearing fear in a sample of American women, and to explore associations between women's experiences and fear of childbirth. Methods:Ninety women 25 weeks of gestation and later who participated in a prospective longitudinal study were administered questionnaires during pregnancy that included background factors (marital status, education, birth history), fear of childbirth, and current levels of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder symptomology. Results:The incidence of serious fear of childbirth (7.7%) was slightly lower than but consistent with studies of Northern European women. When considered separately, 11.6% of women in the care of an obstetrician and 4% of women in the care of a midwife exhibited serious levels of fear. Greater fear of childbirth was seen in women experiencing sexual assault in both childhood and adulthood but not in women endorsing childhood sexual assault alone. Fear was higher among women with a current diagnosis of depression or co-morbid depression and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Conclusion:These results underscore the importance of identifying and treating depression in pregnant women.

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This article reviews the recent edited collection Summoning Our Saints: The Poetry and Prose of Brenda Marie Osbey, edited by John Wharton Lowe (2019), arguing with reference to the indispensable pieces contained in that text that Brenda Marie Osbey's oeuvre and especially her History and Other Poems (2012) merits significantly greater attention than it has thus far received. It proposes reasons for that scholarly neglect, highlighting ways that institutional preferences in black poetic criticism tend to disfavor Osbey's aesthetic choices. Ultimately, it frames Osbey as a contemporary griot whose poetic speaker and formal devices differ substantially from those deployed by living black poets, like Rita Dove and Natasha Trethewey, who have garnered greater scholarly attention.