The University of Wisconsin Press

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Poetry

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Old and New Testaments Lynn Powell The Brittingham Prize in Poetry Ronald Wallace, General Editor Winner of the 1996 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award "A radiance and clarity suffuses Lynn Powell's work." —Carolyn Kizer, Brittingham Prize Citation "In Lynn Powell's poems we rediscover the meaning of the word 'testament,' for they give us a full testimony of a life, a family, a world. Whether writing of grief, or the Rapture, of a junebug or Aunt Roxy at the age of one hundred, she brings us intense, crafted narratives of self­knowledge, of facts so vivid they are painful, becoming signs and also wonders of life. These are poems of the recovery of spiritual desire. This is an extraordinary book, and an extraordinary new talent."—Robert Morgan "These direct, loving, sober poems are the change we need from most recent verse. The intensity of the opening poems in Old & New Testaments builds throughout the book until, almost intolerable, it transforms into profound acceptance, the quietness that comes of acknowledging both life and death. These images and rhythms need no persuasiveness beyond themselves, brightening our spirits with the clarity of reality."—A. R. Ammons "Lynn Powell's Old & New Testaments is a reclaiming of spiritual texts and traditions for a woman's life in the body—a life of childhood physicality, female sexuality, procreation, and nurturing love. Playful, tender, and wise, Powell brings her gospel learning down to earth. We can hail her poems in an old phrase with a new meaning: they are full of grace."—Alicia Ostriker Lynn Powell was raised in East Tennessee and educated at Carson-Newman College and Cornell University. She has worked extensively as a writer in the schools for the Tennessee Arts Commission, the New Jersey State Council for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and currently, the Ohio Arts Council. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, and other journals. She lives in Oberlin, Ohio. Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)

October LC: 95-016361 PS 100 pp. 6 x 9 Paper $14.95 t ISBN 978-0-299-14904-8 Cloth OUT OF PRINT ISBN 978-0-299-14900-5 ADD TO CART

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