Our Lady of the Ruins
Poems
20 April 2012
Description
"Poetry for the new century: awake to the world, spiritually profound, and radiant with lyric intelligence." —Carolyn Forché
Winner of the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize, Our Lady of the Ruins tracks a group of women through their pilgrimage in a mid-apocalyptic world. Exploring war, plagues, and the search for a new God in exile, these poems create a chorus of wanderers haunted by empire, God, and personal trauma.
from “Hysteria: A Requiem”
Now, in the last world, we bury nightingales
beneath the floor.
Trackers with their ears to the ground listen
for angels approaching.
Where is the saint, mortally torn and wearing a
hood of stars,
bearing her own redemption?