Wendy Mnookin

THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA
The poems in THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA, forthcoming from BOA Editions in October 2008, coalesce around the condition of mortality--not a specific death, although these also occur in the poems, but the state of being mortal. How do we hold onto an identity, a recognizable self, in the face of this sure erasure?

WHAT HE TOOK
My father died in a car accident when he, my mother and I were traveling across country in 1949. WHAT HE TOOK, published by BOA Editions in 2002, moves from the accident and my early struggles to understand his death to my efforts to reconcile loss with the arrival of a "new" father. Later poems follow me into adulthood, marrying and starting my own family, always with a longing for my absent father and a sense of the nearness of loss.

TO GET HERE
In the poems in TO GET HERE, published by BOA Editions in 1999, I try to understand the transformation of our family under the pressure of a son's drug addiction. Using shifting chronology and different voices, I explore our family's efforts to understand the changing reality of our lives, to live with the knowledge that we can't keep those we love safe.

GUENEVER SPEAKS
In Malory's MORTE D'ARTHUR, little is said about Guenever's inner life. What were her hopes and dreams, what were her struggles? In the poems in GUENEVER SPEAKS (Round Table Publications, 1991), I use Malory as a starting point to explore what Guenever may have been like under the layers of myth. Illustrated by Deborah Davidson.