Glorious

by Handler, Joan Cusack

• ISBN13: 9780970718648
• ISBN10: 0970718640
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Cavankerry Pr Ltd

Summary

Joan Handler's poems speak of the transmigration of a woman from an emotionally stifled girlhood through the first tentative steps of self-discovery, to, finally, the apostasy of womanhood and the ecstasy that everyday rebellion can bring. Handler undertakes daring experiments with form, shifting and thrusting words to underscore the power of the emotions in her words. Words dance on the pages of Glorious. The poetry is at once lyrical and colloquial in its language, almost narrative in its appeal.

Author Biography

JOAN CUSACK HANDLER was co-founder and director of Presenting Poetry and Prose, a literary series at the John Harms Center for the Arts in New Jersey. She has conducted poetry workshops for beginning and experienced writers, served as workshop leader and featured reader at a recent Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, is a member of the resident faculty at The Frost Place Poetry Festival in Franconia, New Hampshire and sits on the Board of Governors of the Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared in Agni, Boston Review, Poetry East, Southern Humanities Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Feminist Studies, and Wisconsin Review, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998. Recipient of many awards, Ms. Handler was honored by The Boston Review, the Chester H. Jones Foundation, the Eve of St. Agnes Competition, Roberts Writing Awards, Gloucester Country College, and the Allen Ginsberg Competitions.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Pageant of Rages
Pageant of Rages	3	(3)
The Body Complains	6	(6)
Stuff It	12	(5)
Perfect
Perfect
Confession	17	(3)
Shame	20	(2)
Big	22	(2)
Penance	24	(2)
Receiving	26	(2)
Envy	28	(4)
Satan Comes In	32	(9)
Bad
Portrait of a Truce	41	(5)
Sad	46	(4)
Glory	50	(2)
Bad	52	(2)
Prayer Outside the Church	54	(3)
Between Parents	57	(4)
The Cage
The Break	61	(2)
The Cage	63	(2)
Another Apology	65	(1)
Mess	66	(2)
No Known Cause or Cure	68	(1)
Easy	69	(4)
Truce
Gravy	73	(1)
A Portrait of a Woman and the Shadow of a Man	74	(2)
The Mother: Argentina, 1989	76	(2)
Apology	78	(2)
Psychotherapist with Black Leather Binder Sits in White Oak Chair that Came through a Fire	80	(3)
The Only God	83	(6)
Glory
At the End of the Road Toward Montauk: The Black Pine	89	(1)
Another Life	90	(2)
In the Mirror / At the Beach	92	(2)
Family	94	(2)
before the bath	96	(1)
In This Big Bed	97	(1)
To Here	98	(5)
Acknowledgments	103