Mules Of Love: Poems

by Bass, Ellen

• ISBN13: 9781929918225
• ISBN10: 1929918224
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-01
• Publisher: Boa Editions

Summary

Balancing heart-intelligent intimacy and surprising humor, the poems in Ellen Bass's Mules of Love illuminate the essential dynamics of our lives: family, community, sexual love, joy, loss, religion and death. The poems also explore the darker aspects of humanity-personal, cultural, historical and environmental violence-all of which are handled with compassion and grace. Bass's poetic gift is her ability to commiserate with others afflicted by similar hungers and grief. Her poem "Insomnia" concludes: "may something/ comfort you-a mockingbird, a breeze, rain/ on the roof, Chopin's Nocturnes, the thought/ of your child's birth, a kiss,/ or even me-in my chilly kitchen/ with my coat on-thinking of you." Marketing Plans: a_? National advertising a_? National media campaign a_? Advance reader copies a_? Course adoption mailing Author Tour: a_? Berkeley a_? Boston a_? Minneapolis a_? San Francisco a_? Santa Cruz Ellen Bass is co-author (with Laura Davis) of the best-selling The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins 1988, 1994), which has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into nine languages. She has also published several volumes of poetry, and her poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Double Take, and Field. In 1980, Ms. Bass was awarded the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati. Last year, she won Nimrod/Hardman's Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, judged by Thomas Lux. She was nominated for a 2001 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, where she has taught creative writing for 25 years. She has also taught writing workshops at many conferences nationally and in Mallorca, Spain.

Table of Contents

Introduction	9	(4)
Dorianne Laux
I. If There Is No God
Everything on the Menu	13	(2)
God and the G-Spot	15	(1)
If	16	(2)
Jack Gottlieb's in Love	18	(2)
Remodeling the Bathroom	20	(1)
His Teeth	21	(2)
In Which a Deer Is Found in a Bubble Bath	23	(2)
Pay for It	25	(2)
Sometimes, After Making Love	27	(1)
If There Is No God	28	(5)
II. Birds Do It
Birds Do It	33	(1)
Backdoor Karaoke	34	(1)
Poem to My Sex at Fifty-One	35	(1)
Basket of Figs	36	(1)
Marriage Without Sex	37	(1)
Sleeping With You	38	(1)
The Sad Truth	39	(1)
Tigers and People	40	(2)
On Seeing Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa	42	(1)
Can't Get Over Her	43	(4)
III. Tulip Blossoms
For My Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday	47	(1)
Working in the Garden	48	(1)
Oh Demeter	49	(2)
Worry	51	(2)
In My Hands	53	(1)
Guilt	54	(2)
Laundry	56	(1)
Happiness After Sorrow	57	(2)
The Moon	59	(1)
After Our Daughter's Wedding	60	(2)
Tulip Blossoms	62	(3)
IV. Insomnia
Mighty Strong Poems	65	(2)
Why People Murder	67	(2)
Phone Therapy	69	(1)
Bearing Witness	70	(2)
The Thing Is	72	(1)
Sleeping Next to the Man on the Plane	73	(1)
I Love the Way Men Crack	74	(2)
Getting My Hands on My Mother's Body	76	(2)
And What If I Spoke of Despair	78	(2)
Insomnia	80	(4)
Notes	84	(1)
Acknowledgments	85	(2)
About the Author	87	(3)
Colophon	90