Customer Reviews

Eve-from the Autobiography and Other Poems

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I have to admit out loud that I am extremely prejudiced in my review of this book. Mrs. Colquitt taught me creative writing at TCU -- she actually had the nerve to give me a B simply because she said I was not writing up to my potential.

But this is not about me, it is all about her marvelous book. As a teacher, Mrs. Colquitt was self-effacing and understated in speaking of her experience and accomplishments. Others had to tell us that Isaac Bashevis Singer asked her to be his editor. She never would have brought the subject up.

Knowing that about her makes this book all the more moving.

Yet, even if you've never been to Fort Worth, or never had opportunity to hear her lecture, you will appreciate this book. The first half could be a modern midrash on Eve (and Lilith). Colquitt writes feminism the way she practices it -- gentle, assertive, intelligent, and kind.

The second half of the book tends to the more autobiographical. The final poem was for me gut-wrenching, as I honored and respected her husband, my math professor, for his unrelenting fairness and sense of humor. Dr. Colquitt died shortly after my own father died, and Mrs. Colquitt's vulnerability here is seldom duplicated.

EVE is serious, playful, and worth curling up next to the fireplace and reading aloud.