Publisher's Synopsis
"Annette Spaulding-Convy's 'In Broken Latin' is a lurid, sumptuous, shocking collection of poems, as intimate as any memoir. A riveting portrait of the passions of the body as well as the soul, In Broken Latin is ecstatic and wise, brutal and tender. What a breathtaking debut!" -Julianna Baggott, author of Compulsions of Silk Works and Bees and Lizzie Borden in Love "'In Broken Latin' disorders the ritualised life of a passionate and learned Roman Catholic nun, soon to leave her order for the joys and losses of a secular life, a woman's life with childbirth, depression, and rituals at the heart. Annette Spaulding-Convy was a nun and she is a poet. After she leaves the convent, she imagines finding her habit in the closet: "Maybe on the back, I'll sketch a rib / returning to man because it's tired / of the story . . ." Wit, learning, candor, and formal discipline raise the poems, which soar like spirit for the reader's pleasure." -Hilda Raz, author of What Happens and Trans "Annette Spaulding-Convy's In Broken Latin takes everything you ever assumed about life in the convent and turns it on its head. Smart, sensuous, engaging-these poems balance fierceness with gentleness, humor with darkness, and they are innovative while still being understandable. Spaulding-Convy offers an intelligence and magnetism in her poems that is rarely seen in a first collection." -Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room
