God in her Ruffled Dress

GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS

God in Her Ruffled Dress enacts conversations between illness and wellness, body and spirit, the temporal and the eternal. These poems chart a personal investigation of the divine, in which erotic desire is central, feminist awareness is inherent, and gender is many-faceted. But the spark for each poem is not ideology, but rather, a lyrical impulse to search and illuminate.

Bookended by two poem-prayers, the book’s four sections move from healing to various forms of creating:

- “Return to the Body” includes poems on Lisa B’s longstanding type 1 diabetes, Biblical scripture, and spiritual transformation.

- “Drum the Beginning of the World” focuses on the human/divine interface through the lens of singing and music, with homages to jazz masters and poems on the author’s own practice as a vocalist.

- “Sever the Head” is inspired by pandemic politics.

- Finally, “Propagate" probes love, sensuality, birth, and death.

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Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer writes glowingly
and perceptively about GIHRD in
a recent issue of Harbor Review.