Customer Reviews

Ferry Woman's History of the World

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I'm not a poet. I'm just a guy who likes chopping wood and watching Godfather movies. Several decades ago, I used to read novels and poetry, etc.. Then, I went through university, received a degree in English, and the passion subsided.
Today, as I write this against a backdrop of a bullet-strewn Church of Nativity and Palestinian girls blowing themselves up,
I find myself returning to poetry in order to maintain sanity.
Reading "Ferry Woman's HIstory of the World" made me realize what I felt long ago: we need our poets far more than our politicians. In this case, the poet remains nearly invisible "threading words through the eye of poetry's needle"
(from the Afterword). Susan Andrews Grace, the author, has the skill to make the ordinary seem extraordinary. Against a backdrop on nine hundred years of religious, historical and family conflict, Gilliosa Mary Fitzgerald, the protagonist, journeys from childhood to womanhood. If you think of Ulysses wondering how he came to be a housewife, you will have some idea of the scope of this beautiful narrative. It is a rich and complex serial poem, filled with humor and tragedy, wit and innocence.
One suggestion: if you're a bit lazy like I am, read the Afterword first. I your a serious, disciplined reader, read the poem, then the Afterword and then the poem again.
Terry Stimpson