Mary Leader

The Distaff Side Mary Leader

Needlework, as this brilliant book makes plain, has been trivialized and dismissed as mere women's work. What a joy it is to inhabit this world in which the needle and the pen share the labors of love.

Needlework, as this brilliant book makes plain, has been trivialized and dismissed as mere women's work. The poems here, however, present the powerful counterpoint that work with the needle, from the flame-stitch to embroidery, is both a skill and a foundation for female artistic expression. It is a hands-on art, passed from woman to woman through the generations. Such passage also entails the vital connections to selfhood, history, meaning, and wisdom. This is a book that syllable by syllable as if stitch by stitch, creates patterns that exceed the confines of artistic form by reclaiming form and redefining it, with a total effect that is affirming and transcendent. What a joy it is to inhabit this world in which the needle and the pen share the labors of love. After all, love is a most subversive expression. This book is proof.--Maurice Manning

Poetry. Women's Studies.
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