Particular Scandals: A Book of Poems

by Julie L. Moore

Overview

Description: Broad in scope--theological, ecological, and personal--and acutely particular in details--witnessed and lived--the affecting poems in Particular Scandals explore how one endures suffering, avoiding the clichés of both bitterness and transcendence. Thus, while Moore's poetry depicts the debilitating ruin illness wreaks, it also embraces the beauty and mystery in creation, in faith, even in tribulation itself. At the book's core is pure paradox and insightful integration, wedding Christmas--Christ's incarnation and eventual, willing sacrifice--to pain and grief. Thus, on the heels of Moore's multiple surgeries and amid her husband's serious heart problem--both while in their forties--come "flashes of hallelujah" and songs knit with Amens "un- / broken, like a world without end." Empathetic and observant, Moore's evocative poems also turn their attention to friends' and other family members' appalling losses: a stillborn infant, suicidal adolescents, molested, and trafficked children. All in all, the book portrays how Moore survives like the Sycamore tree in one of her poems, "scabbed and scarred from moments like this," offering her "empty self / like a cup to the Lord of the storm."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620327883
Publisher:	Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date:	06/04/2013
Series:	Poiema Poetry Series , #4
Pages:	98
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.23(d)

About the Author

Julie L. Moore is the author of Slipping Out of Bloom (2010) and the chapbook Election Day (2006). Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice and Best of the Net and has appeared both in anthologies and in publications like The Christian Century, The Missouri Review Online, The Southern Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Verse Daily. She lives in Cedarville, Ohio, where she's the Writing Center Director at Cedarville University.

Table of Contents

1

Amen and Amen 3

Confession 5

Shadow of Death 7

Evolution 9

Killdeer 11

Prayer Shawl 13

Recovery 14

Denouement 15

Harnessing Infinity 17

First Frost 18

Dark Birds 19

Family Portrait 20

The first time I saw a shooting star 21

Something to Amaze 23

Peace Lily 24

Particular Scandals 26

2

The Painted Lady and the Thistle 33

Arrival 34

Abundance 35

Christmas Stillborn 36

What We Heard on Christmas Day 37

Wonder 38

Universe 39

Pessimist 40

White-Breasted Nuthatch 41

Opening Day 42

Cherry Blossoms 44

Have Something to Say 45

Ancient Ritual 46

Arioso on Wings 48

Clifton Gorge 50

Royal Candles 51

Hells Angels 52

Cicada Shells 53

Return 54

Ohio 55

3

Prodigal 59

Does soil hurt 60

Afterlife 61

Intersection 62

Voice 63

The Grass Grows Ordinary 64

Lump 65

Chicory 66

Waiting Room 67

Will you let me write about my love for my child 69

Blue 70

Sightseeing 71

Labor Day 72

Where Rain Clears 73

A Clear Path 74

Eating Her Way through December 75

One December Evening 77

Buck 78

Planting a Tree 79

Stealth 80

Kyrie Eleison 81

Remember Blessing 82

Window 84

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The scandal of this collection is it sizzles with such life, such particularity, such fierce pain and love, that you may not be able to put it down. Chatting about the weather, reflecting on ill health, estimating our chances of happiness, recounting adventures of a Labrador retriever and the astonishment of the incarnation, Julie Moore sounds as close as a friend. And yes, she is as trustworthy."
—Jeanne Murray Walker, author of New Tracks, Night Falling

"These are poems that span our daily lives and ask the hard metaphysical and theological questions living brings. . . . They are alert (without sentimentality or false transcendence) to the grace and beauty, both ordinary and commonplace, that open our hearts and mouths in hallelujah. I so admire these poems that quietly refrain from false claims and extravagances, but patiently bring us—in their detailed evocations—closer to [our] paradoxical and mysterious lives."
—Robert Cording, author of Walking with Ruskin

"What poetry can be made of [those] sufferings none of us want to live the first time around? Fine poetry, it turns out, that offers neither a romantic whitewash nor despairing doubt, but a series of beautiful particulars that offer clarity, beauty, and 'amens' in the midst of a world unlikely to change. Readers will be freshly charged to see joy in the scandal of living."
—Leslie Leyland Fields, editor of The Spirit of Food

"The poems of Julie Moore's exhilarating collection, Particular Scandals, are poised 'on the primal edge / of wonder.' Musical and observant, attentive to the 'mystery that envelops us,' she glimpses the eternal in ordinary things, such as the birds she lovingly identifies, from vulture to white-breasted nuthatch. Even in a 'universe of pain,' she discovers how to praise, as any real poet must."
—John Drury, author of Creating Poetry

Editorial Reviews

"The scandal of this collection is it sizzles with such life, such particularity, such fierce pain and love, that you may not be able to put it down. Chatting about the weather, reflecting on ill health, estimating our chances of happiness, recounting adventures of a Labrador retriever and the astonishment of the incarnation, Julie Moore sounds as close as a friend. And yes, she is as trustworthy."
—Jeanne Murray Walker, author of New Tracks, Night Falling

"These are poems that span our daily lives and ask the hard metaphysical and theological questions living brings. . . . They are alert (without sentimentality or false transcendence) to the grace and beauty, both ordinary and commonplace, that open our hearts and mouths in hallelujah. I so admire these poems that quietly refrain from false claims and extravagances, but patiently bring us—in their detailed evocations—closer to [our] paradoxical and mysterious lives."
—Robert Cording, author of Walking with Ruskin

"What poetry can be made of [those] sufferings none of us want to live the first time around? Fine poetry, it turns out, that offers neither a romantic whitewash nor despairing doubt, but a series of beautiful particulars that offer clarity, beauty, and 'amens' in the midst of a world unlikely to change. Readers will be freshly charged to see joy in the scandal of living."
—Leslie Leyland Fields, editor of The Spirit of Food

"The poems of Julie Moore's exhilarating collection, Particular Scandals, are poised 'on the primal edge / of wonder.' Musical and observant, attentive to the 'mystery that envelops us,' she glimpses the eternal in ordinary things, such as the birds she lovingly identifies, from vulture to white-breasted nuthatch. Even in a 'universe of pain,' she discovers how to praise, as any real poet must."
—John Drury, author of Creating Poetry

From the Publisher