Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women's Spirituality

This rich and diverse sourcebook of poetry and prose celebrates women's spirituality in its many forms and is dedicated, above all, to the sacredness of the ordinary, to embodied life.More than three hundred poems and a few prose pieces by modern writers such as Maya Angelou, Annie Dillard, Denise Levertov, Marge Piercy, and Alice Walker, and earlier writers such as Hildegard of Bingen and Margaret Fuller, offer new insights into the realm of the spirit. Here women's voices fill the traditional silence about matters central to women's experience, from menstruation, sexual intimacy, and childbirth to cooking, caretaking, and household rituals to miscarriage, death, and lesser losses. The writings collected in this anthology represent a healing vision of the sacred that emerges from the particular consciousness of women—a vision that is life-giving and partakes of the world of earth and flesh.Organized thematically, Cries of the Spirit can be used as a sourcebook for public rituals, group gatherings, or personal reflection.Owning self. Unlearning to not speak ; The woman in the ordinary / Marge Piercy --Shameless hussy (excerpt) / Alta --Woman and nature (excerpt) / Susan Griffin --Variation on a theme by Rilke ; Stepping westward / Denise Levertov --The poem as mask / Muriel Rukeyser --Outrage / Lucille Iverson --Woman in the nineteenth century (excerpt) / Margaret Fuller --Offspring / Naomi Long Madgett --Now I become myself / May Sarton --I am running into a new year / Lucille Clifton --Listen / Linda Lancione Moyer --Lilith and the doctor / Kathleen Norris --The journey / Mary Oliver --The irises / Jeanne Foster --Blue morning glory / Anne Pitkin --Housing shortage / Naomi Replansky --Aging (balm for a 27th birthday) / Erica Jong --Advice / Ruth Stone. The imperative of intimacy. Prayer for revolutionary love / Denise Levertov --Out of my time (excerpt) / Marya Mannes --Councils / Marge Piercy --To have without holding / Marge Piercy --Paris and Helen / Judy Grahn --Pornography and silence (excerpt) / Susan Griffin --Growing together / Joyce Carol Oates --After love / Maxine Kumin --A thought / Linda Hogan --New mother / Sharon Olds --Dancing the shout to the true gospel or The song Movement sisters don't want me to sing / Rita Mae Brown --Late autumn / May Sarton --The way towards each other / Jeni Couzyn --Blossom / Mary Oliver --To drink / Jane Hirshfield --Medicine ; Love is not concerned / Alice Walker --The hug / Tess Gallagher --Nikki-Rosa / Nikki Giovanni --Feast Day (excerpt) / Ellen Bryant Voigt --Ironing their clothes / Julia Alvarez --7:3 ; 2:7 (excerpts) / Alta --The big heart / Anne Sexton --Centering (excerpt) / Mary Caroline Richards. Mothering. Advent / Kathleen Norris --Early morning woman / Joy Harjo --Poems for the new / Kathleen Fraser --Magnificat / Chana Bloch --The wife takes a child / Ellen Bryant Voigt --Birth / George Ella Lyon --Rising to meet it / Chana Bloch --Now that I am forever with child / Audre Lorde --The network of the imaginary mother (2 excerpts) / Robin Morgan --Lorelei / Alta --Unspoken / Judith Ortiz Cofer --Happy Birthday / Alicia Ostriker --Mothers, daughters / Shirley Kaufman --The bad mother / Susan Griffin --Black mother woman / Audre Lorde --February 13, 1980 / Lucille Clifton --One writer's beginnings (excerpt) / Eudora Welty --The measure of my days (excerpt) / Florida Scott-Maxwell --Mother / Sharon Mayer Libera --Each bird walking / Tess Gallagher --35/10 / Sharon Olds. Generations. Dandelion greens / Jane Flanders --Keeping hair / Ramona Wilson --Matmiya / Mary TallMountain --For two who slipped away almost entirely / Alice Walker --Legacies / Nikki Giovanni --Whitecaps / Betsy Sholl --Lineage / Margaret Walker --Poem to my grandmother in her death / Michele Murray --Five poems for grandmothers (excerpt) / Margaret Atwood --Spring fragments (excerpt) / Betsy Sholl --Prologue (excerpt) / Audre Lorde --Poem at thirty-nine / Alice Walker --The envelope / Maxine Kumin --Eggs ; The moment / Sharon Olds --Three sweatshop women / Nanying Stella Wong --A poem about faith / Kathleen Norris --The will's love / Besmilr Brigham --What is repeated, what abides / Barbara Hendryson --Elegy / Maya Angelou. Death and lesser losses. The mother / Gwendolyn Brooks --Ten years ago / Eileen Moeller --Unborn child elegy (excerpt) ; Country woman elegy / Margaret Gibson --Flowers / Kathleen Fraser --104 ; 3:1 / Alta --My grandfather / Joanne Hotchkiss --Lynn / Jeanne Foster --Easter, 1968 / May Sarton --What hell is / Heather McHugh --Mama Rosanna's last bead-clack / Laurel Speer --Lament / Edna St. Vincent Millay --"Goodnight, Willie Lee, I'll see you in the morning" / Alice Walker --Finding the lamb (excerpt) / Rebecca Newth --Aunt Lucy / Jane Gentry --Apples / Shirley Ka...