Customer Reviews

Madonna Magdalene

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I once sat down and scanned the bible, looking for the poetry I knew was there.
I thought I would fish it out and exploit its powers for my own poetry. But I couldn't find it,
or it wasn't available to me. Kim's work offers this poetry in spades.

Her poetry is lyrical above all, thank goodness, a lyricism made of
the incantatory ryhthms and phrasings and images found in the bible at its best. Her use
of these forms seem necessary to the content of her poems. Their subtle formalism
lies low, dusting the poems with an uncanny glow, until it is summoned to hold
those ecstatic moments which, she seems to be saying, can only come out of the
practice of reverence, coupled to moments of passion.

Kim's work also offered me an access to Cristianity's origin myth that no amount of
authoritarian males ever had or could. The portal she opens back to this moment
is her own self, as a person, a poet and a woman, and her revelation of female
forms of ecstasy, love, and passion. The trail she opens to this past runs straight
through the tangled inner connections between the physical and the emotional
experiences which constitute female sensuality,
sexuality--a perennial mystery not just to Freud but
to all men who, sadly, are doomed never to escape the myopic convulsions and
interpretations of Testosterone and its agression.

The authors linkage of past to present, present to past travels a territory
made up of the personal and universal; the poetic eye,
the body's mind and the authors frank and unartificed gaze. Like the woman
on the cover,Kim offers herself, opens herself, giving a historical moment
in Cristianity
whole new colors and clothing, to keep open a small airhole, and a way back,
to the parts of Christanity and its origin story that are still rich and alive and universal.

Michael Mcgovern

I stumbled upon this book randomly in a coffee shop, and it has been one of my favorite books of poetry since. I've actually had to purchase three copies of it over the course of a few years because people keep running off with my own after I lend it to them! The poems are understated, but have such power in their chosen wording. I would (and have) definitely recommend this book to any poetry lover!