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| Poet Annette Spaulding-Convy |
I am thrilled to introduce Annette Spaulding-Convy in our second week of introductions of A Poet At Your Table 2013-2014 sponsored by Seattle Arts and Lectures, Book Lift, and Crab Creek Review.
To find out more about Annette you can check out her brand new blog at Tea with the Hermitess right here. Annette was also a Jack Straw Fellow in 2011 and a podcast of her reading her work is available here.
Book Reviews of In Broken Latin
The Ex-Nun, The Soldier's Wife, and the Fabulist
by Robert Peake at The Huffington Post
Annette Spaulding-Convy's In Broken Latin (University of Arkansas Press, 2012) addresses the female body in service to a calling--first as a nun, then as a mother. Each section of Spaulding-Convy's collection is prefaced by pairing a quote from a female saint with a quote from a "bad girl" such as Madonna, Mae West, or Sylvia Plath. These binary views of womanhood are exemplified by professional men in "from Uterine Dogma", where the doctor signing off the pre-convent physical wonders whether she is a virgin as he "rubs my back, tells me / he wants his own daughter // to have a calling" and the dentist says the same while "brushing his crotch / too close to my cotton- / packed mouth."
Such imposed views from the male world coalesce in "Everything Except her Head", which begins with a bulletin about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger arriving to inspect the seminary to ensure that women are not actually studying, but instead assisting "with the preparation of desserts and cocktails". Part II of the poem, "Severed Hagiography", catalogues the parts of female saints preserved by the patriarchy as relics, underscoring the double meaning of the main title through the church's most conspicuous omission--their heads.
In Broken Latin by Karen J. Weyant, Scrapper Poet
The Ex-Nun, The Soldier's Wife, and the Fabulist
by Robert Peake at The Huffington Post
Annette Spaulding-Convy's In Broken Latin (University of Arkansas Press, 2012) addresses the female body in service to a calling--first as a nun, then as a mother. Each section of Spaulding-Convy's collection is prefaced by pairing a quote from a female saint with a quote from a "bad girl" such as Madonna, Mae West, or Sylvia Plath. These binary views of womanhood are exemplified by professional men in "from Uterine Dogma", where the doctor signing off the pre-convent physical wonders whether she is a virgin as he "rubs my back, tells me / he wants his own daughter // to have a calling" and the dentist says the same while "brushing his crotch / too close to my cotton- / packed mouth."
Such imposed views from the male world coalesce in "Everything Except her Head", which begins with a bulletin about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger arriving to inspect the seminary to ensure that women are not actually studying, but instead assisting "with the preparation of desserts and cocktails". Part II of the poem, "Severed Hagiography", catalogues the parts of female saints preserved by the patriarchy as relics, underscoring the double meaning of the main title through the church's most conspicuous omission--their heads.
In Broken Latin by Karen J. Weyant, Scrapper Poet
There Were No Rules About Underwear
My friend, the Carmelite, could only wear white
non-bikini panties, laceless bras,
but my Order was progressive—red satin, cut
to show some hip, a midnight-blue Wonderbra
hidden under my habit. The fathers were perceptive, not priest
fathers, but men who flirted with me
while their daughters lit Virgin
of Guadalupe candles in the chapel alcove,
men like the firefighter, who ran into my bedroom
the summer night I slept nude, flames
in the cloister attic. I pulled the sheet around my body
as he looked at black lace on the floor—
I need to feel your walls to see if they’re hot.
For more information on inviting Annette to your table please write to "poetatyourtable(at)gmail.com
My friend, the Carmelite, could only wear white
non-bikini panties, laceless bras,
but my Order was progressive—red satin, cut
to show some hip, a midnight-blue Wonderbra
hidden under my habit. The fathers were perceptive, not priest
fathers, but men who flirted with me
while their daughters lit Virgin
of Guadalupe candles in the chapel alcove,
men like the firefighter, who ran into my bedroom
the summer night I slept nude, flames
in the cloister attic. I pulled the sheet around my body
as he looked at black lace on the floor—
I need to feel your walls to see if they’re hot.
For more information on inviting Annette to your table please write to "poetatyourtable(at)gmail.com
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