Julia Carlson

Prayer for the Misbegotten Julia Carlson

Winter's coming, and you're ready because you don't have a choice. There is no quaint New England in these poems. No pretty fall colors, no kids laughing on a summer beach. They bespeak the dead of winter. You'll hear the cracking of ice, slush on the harbor, arctic channels. The prayed-for misbegotten are all of us, including the animals (sparrows, a turtle, a cow, guinea pigs, various species of birds). Verse that is bracing, inclement, severe and 100% natural. It is the man-made disasters for which she reserves judgement: the plight of the homeless man in a Boston winter, a train platform in France from which 50,000 Jews had been shipped camp-ward, abuse of animals, coal mine explosions... "Acts of God I can forgive, but not the acts of men." -Dawn Oberg, Songwriter