Lucy

A Poem

Sarabande Books
Jean Valentine
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Lucy / your secret book / that you leaned over and wrote just in the dirt-- / Not having to have an ending / Not having to last. . . . And so begins Jean Valentine's provocative new work, Lucy, a poem that pays homage to the three million-year-old skeleton of the earliest known hominid. With a deep sense of gratitude and profound longing, this poem celebrates the creative power of the female by introducing us to one of our oldest human ancestors. In a dreamlike and often fractured syntax that is vintage Valentine, Lucy, the "wildgood mother" of our species, can once again be heard.

Contributor Bio

Author of over a dozen poetry collections, Jean Valentine won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book in 1965, and subsequent collections have won the The PSA's Shelley Memorial Prize in 2000 and the National Book Award in 2004. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, NYU, Columbia, and the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.

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