Imaginary Ancestors - Softcover

Defrees, Madeline

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0913089141 ISBN 13: 9780913089149

Publisher: Broken Moon Press, 1990

Synopsis

Poetry. " IMAGINARY ANCESTORS is a search for self-definition that leads Madeline DeFrees to that fertile ground where imagination unearths the past in order to invent the present. She unlocks her complex family past, which becomes a version of American history; struggles with the crisis of religious faith in our time; and affirms a moving, personal vision of America's feminine poetic tradition. Her language is chiseled and penetrating, full of those marvelous, idiosyncratic perceptions that recall Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore. Those who know When Sky Lets Go and Magpie on the Gallows will find IMAGINARY ANCESTORS a wonderful furthering of Madeline DeFree's art. Those who haven't discovered Madeline DeFree's poems will find this book a revelation" -Peter Balakian.

About this title

About the Author:

At 17, Madeline DeFrees entered a Catholic convent and remained a nun for 38 years. She has published nine volumes of poetry and has taught at universities and colleges throughout the United States. Her most recent book, Blue Dusk, won the Lenore Marshall/The Nation prize. She lives in Seattle.

Review:

A remarkable achievement, Madeline DeFrees's genealogy of her own vision is astonishing at every turn. The ancestry she traces - from actual parents to unknown grandparents, from historical figures (Ulysses S. Grant) to muses religious (Teresa of Avila) and literary (Marianne Moore, George Eliot) - leads us down roads of inquiry into the deepest valleys of learning, faith, and memory; the mindscape of these poems is erudite, touching, affectionate, angry, and funny, inspired and inspiring. The particulars of her life (being the child of an orphan mother; devoting thirtyeight years of life in the convent; travels; teachings; readings) are spun into many-colored threads that are bound together into one strong rope of verse; this rope hangs deep into the well of imagination, where the true self is hidden, nourished, and educated. One poem in particular, in which DeFrees invents a liaison between Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, deserves to brighten the pages of future anthologies. As capstone to DeFrees's rich career as writer and teacher, Imaginary Ancestors should be welcomed with cheers. Selected by Robert Hass as winner of the 1990 King County Arts Commission Publication Award. -- From Independent Publisher

Andrew Carnegie Compared To The Air We Breathe (1835-1919)
Arthur Strangeways
The Bishops Bring Tablets Of Stone
Burning Questions
Clare Of Assisi
Emily Dickenson And Gerard Manley Hopkins
Eminent Victorians
Ernst Barlach
Galileo's Case Reopened (1564-1642)
George Eliot (mary Ann Evans Cross)
Gilbert Of Sempringham
Grandmother Grant
Greta Garbo And The Star Messenger
Honesty
Honey Hunters Of Nepal
Horatio Alger (1834-1899)
Imaginary Ancestors: The Giraffe Woman Of Burma
Maria Callas, The Woman Behind The Legend*
Marianne Moore
Modern Primitives
Nest Gathers Of Tiger Cave, Thailand
On My Father's Side
Saharan Nomads
Seven Questions For Catherine-at-the-wheel
Sister Maria Celeste, Galileo's Daughter, Writes To Friend
The Sleepwalker's Dialogue*
Stages Of Family Life
Teresa Of Avila
The Tuareg Smith
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
Uncle Matt's Farm In Cherry Grove
What Makes Or Breaks Them
The Widow
Woman Of The Veil
The Women With Fabled Hair
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About this edition

• Publisher: Broken Moon Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0913089141
• ISBN 13: 9780913089149
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 74