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Lost Gospels
In the opening poem of Lost Gospels , Lorri Neilsen Glenn writes of Mahalia Jackson and Blind Willie Johnson: ... they sang, oh yes, they raised light from dark water, dug diamonds out of the cold, cold ground ... . In a sense this is what Neilsen Glenn herself achieves in this deeply moving third book: raising light from dark water. Her new collection confronts the deaths of dear friends and family members, returns to her prairie childhood and youth, and engages hard, hard questions of mortality, and of existence in a world fraught with suffering and violence (both global and domestic). Central is the poetic sequence "A Song for Simone" - a conversation between the poet and French mystical philosopher Simone Weil. Here is poetry reaching out to embrace a manner of being in the world that at once moves beyond the world and engages it fully. Lost Gospels confirms Neilsen Glenn as a poet of maturity, depth and power.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published April 28, 2010
16 people want to read
About the author
Lorri Neilsen Glenn
11 books14 followersBorn and raised in Winnipeg, MB, Lorri Neilsen Glenn has lived in Halifax, NS since 1983. In addition to her work as a poet, Glenn is also an ethnographer and essayist. Glenn has studied at the Universities of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Harvard.
Her first collection of poetry, all the perfect disguises (Broken Jaw Press), was published in 2003. 2007 saw the publication of both a chapbook, Saved String (Rubicon Press), and a second collection, Combustion (Brick Books). In 2010, Glenn published her third full collection, Lost Gospels, also through Brick Books. In 2011, Hagios Press published Threading the Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry. Most recently, Glenn was the editor for Untyping the Apron: Daughters Remember Mothers of the 1950s (2013, Guernica).
Glenn has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards for her poetry throughout her career, including the National Magazine Awards, Short Grain Contest, CBC Literary Awards, and the Bliss Carman Poetry Awards. She has also received recognition for her scholarship, having won awards in Grain, Event Magazine, and Prairie Fire.
From 2005-2009, Glenn served as poet laureate for the Regional Municipality of Halifax. She currently teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University.
Her first collection of poetry, all the perfect disguises (Broken Jaw Press), was published in 2003. 2007 saw the publication of both a chapbook, Saved String (Rubicon Press), and a second collection, Combustion (Brick Books). In 2010, Glenn published her third full collection, Lost Gospels, also through Brick Books. In 2011, Hagios Press published Threading the Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry. Most recently, Glenn was the editor for Untyping the Apron: Daughters Remember Mothers of the 1950s (2013, Guernica).
Glenn has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards for her poetry throughout her career, including the National Magazine Awards, Short Grain Contest, CBC Literary Awards, and the Bliss Carman Poetry Awards. She has also received recognition for her scholarship, having won awards in Grain, Event Magazine, and Prairie Fire.
From 2005-2009, Glenn served as poet laureate for the Regional Municipality of Halifax. She currently teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 22, 2010
In Lost Gospels (Brick, 96 pages, $19), Halifax-based Lorri Neilsen Glenn has done what all mid-career poets long to do: make themselves magnificently vulnerable.
Known for her gently feminist lyrics, Glenn has turned her third collection into a series of open-ended questions about faith.
Glenn probes the differences between prayer, song and poetry as a way of getting at what, precisely, faith is. In Loose Gospels, she writes:
"So ask yourself: when desire strums you like a fingerboard, what else can you // feel but faith, how it resonates? Listen: you are the meantime. Walk into the water, / and when the vibration summons your bones, you know you're coming home."
The Prairie-reared Glenn grounds herself, in the midst of all her questioning and uncertainty, in poems about the women in her family, the places they lived and the ways they died.
(From my March 27 poetry column that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press' books section.)
Known for her gently feminist lyrics, Glenn has turned her third collection into a series of open-ended questions about faith.
Glenn probes the differences between prayer, song and poetry as a way of getting at what, precisely, faith is. In Loose Gospels, she writes:
"So ask yourself: when desire strums you like a fingerboard, what else can you // feel but faith, how it resonates? Listen: you are the meantime. Walk into the water, / and when the vibration summons your bones, you know you're coming home."
The Prairie-reared Glenn grounds herself, in the midst of all her questioning and uncertainty, in poems about the women in her family, the places they lived and the ways they died.
(From my March 27 poetry column that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press' books section.)
Displaying 1 of 1 review