Our Lady of the Ruins: Poems (Barnard Women Poets Prize)

"Poetry for the new century: awake to the world, spiritually profound, and radiant with lyric intelligence." —Carolyn Forché

Winner of the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize, Our Lady of the Ruins tracks a group of women through their pilgrimage in a mid-apocalyptic world.  Exploring war, plagues, and the search for a new God in exile, these poems create a chorus of wanderers haunted by empire, God, and personal trauma.

from “Hysteria: A Requiem”

Now, in the last world, we bury nightingales
    beneath the floor.
    Trackers with their ears to the ground listen
                                       for angels approaching.

Where is the saint,              mortally torn and wearing a
hood of stars,
    bearing her own redemption?