There’s nothing like poetry for emotional healing. I’d like to share a book of poetry written by my friend Chloe Yelena Miller. Titled Viable, it’s a slim collection that packs powerful emotions and reflections. It’s also witty, in a serene and contemplative way. If you’re wondering how to heal emotionally from a miscarriage, this is a fabulous place to turn.
But this collection can and should be enjoyed by everyone. The human experiences of miscarriage, pregnancy, motherhood, and family are prominent themes of Viable. Historically, these themes have been downplayed as belonging to the women’s sphere. Moreover, miscarriage and pregnancy are still somewhat taboo. As always, I urge you to read outside of your comfort zone—you might be surprised at how much you’ll learn and grow as a human by doing so.
Sure, I’m a woman, but I don’t have kids, so Viable presented me with new perspectives. Also, I admire Miller’s unabashed passion for family, as well as family heritage; her passion shines through her work and gives me hope for a world where extended families can avoid being torn apart by politics, and instead be brought together by love.
Another wonderful aspect of this poetry collection is its emphasis on change over time. As with pregnancy, Miller’s poems change rapidly, offering fresh perceptions and ideas with each subsequent stanza. The entire collection, too, highlights Miller’s ever-changing life as she loses one child and gains another. Here’s a snippet of one poem, in which the poet addresses her young son:
You startle me. A human
displacing yesterday’s empty space.
How does miscarriage feel, emotionally speaking, years later? Does it feel like “yesterday’s empty space” (what a beautiful phrase)? But—don’t think that the answer to how to heal emotionally from a miscarriage is to have a viable baby to replace the lost child. Miller has a different answer, a truer and emotionally harder one. Near the end of the book, she writes:
I am sorry, little one.
Despite the passage of many years, her sorrow does not leave her. It probably never will. But through poetry, sorrow is grappled with and released into a shared space: a little book. If you’d like to explore how to heal emotionally from a miscarriage, do try the shared space of poetry.
I met Chloe at the Washington Writers Conference last year (registration for 2025 closes on April 30). She is a co-founder of Brown Bag Lit, a community for writers that offers classes, an accountability group, events, and coaching and editorial services. Brown Bag Lit recently invited me to speak about my poetry book Two Novembers in a session on love and writing (view the video recording). Chloe has an MFA in writing and teaches writing at the college level, at the bookstore Politics & Prose, and elsewhere. Please enjoy my interview with her about Viable.
LA: Did you write these poems as you were experiencing the events described, or later on? How did the timing of the writing affect the poetry?
CYM: I drafted the poems in Viable more or less as the events were happening starting in 2011 and then spent some years editing them. Later, I added in lines to fill in the overall narrative. In particular, my editor suggested an additional poem for the final poem and I wrote that after the book was accepted in 2019. The book was published on Valentine’s Day in 2021.
LA: The book is touchingly family oriented. As you were working on the book, did you envision your family reading it? Did they read it, and how did their reactions make you feel as a poet and artist?
CYM: Thank you so much. Yes, I share most of my work with my husband as I write it. He read through the poems before publication through the lens of being our child’s dad and made a few small recommendations, which I took and was grateful for.
As a first-time mom, I couldn’t quite imagine how my child would understand the poems later. He is now eleven and has heard me read some of the poems. He hasn’t asked to read the book yet, which is ok.
Before publishing, I did ask a writer-therapist-mom to read the manuscript through the lens of a therapist, keeping my child in mind. She offered some helpful feedback. I also asked a poet-mom friend to read the work as both a poet and a mom.
LA: Was the “Apologies” section intentional, or did you happen to write multiple apologetic poems and later group them together? Was this section inspired by another poem or poet?
CYM: I don’t remember there being a particular inspiration for this section. Perhaps it was something that came up in therapy as I was working through my post-partum depression?
LA: You teach creative writing through Brown Bag Lit, Politics & Prose Bookstore, and New Directions. Do you share with your students any tips you learned from the writing or publication of Viable, and would you be willing to share one of those tips here?
CYM: I’m always happy to discuss Viable and my own writing process. I think the aspect of community is sometimes forgotten in craft classes. We spend time drafting alone, but then need our community to help shape our work and help it to find a home.
I was submitting my manuscript to many presses and some contests. While individual poems had been published and the manuscript was sometimes a finalist, the collection as a whole remained unpublished.
Eventually I reached out to a private Facebook group for poets asking for press recommendations. The editor-in-chief of Lily Poetry Review Books, Eileen Cleary, kindly suggested her own press. I submitted and was accepted!
I was very happy to have a phone conversation with her about her vision and press before I accepted. I read some of the collections she had published and spoke with two of her authors. In the end, I’m so glad to have been picked up by her not only because of her keen editing eye, but also because of the community she’s formed with her authors. The authors and editors have a listserv in which we share good news, readings and opportunities and are always happy to see each other at events. She’s specifically connected some of us who live close together and is wonderful about keeping her poetry family woven together.
LA: You have a new book of poetry coming out soon. When will it be released, and what is it about?
CYM: My second full-length poetry collection, Perforated, is due out in January 2026 from Lily Poetry Review Books! The poems center on public and private grief, as well as the light that we can find between griefs.
Featured in this post: Viable by Chloe Yelena Miller Buy it now
Learn more about Chloe Yelena Miller: chloeyelenamiller.com
