Ceremonies of the Spirit

Wendy Brown-Báez writes in the heat from ecstatic love loss Mexico and New Mexico. She has the poetry muscles and music for this harsh calling. Quemado Qué madre! These poems are very powerful! Joan Logghe Founder of Write Action writing workshop and author of Twenty Years in Bed with the Same Man Blessed Resistance Sofia and Rice Its hot and humid at 4:30 am in New York and I cant sleep I turn to my in-box. There is news of a friends child just born and with another click news of a book being born as well. It brings back an image of a poet performing a poem in New Mexico years ago she wrapped herself in a shawl and spoke of falling in love in the Middle East. Youre holding the book in your hands and in the magic way of words and stories youre holding that baby as well. Thats what Wendy does she connects us with words and wraps us in the safety of a shawl so we can fall in love with poetry once again. Gary Glazner Founder of the Alzheimers Poetry Project Ceremonies of the Spirit takes us on a journey from surrendering the things-and people-we love to being transformed as a result of that process. The poems in this collection are rich with images that leave us feeling both the pain of tears cupped to the heart like a string of pearls and the wonder of transformation like the dancer somersaulting against the window pane. These emotionally-charged poems remind us what its like to be human. John Medeiros recipient of Minnesota State Arts Board and Jerome Foundation Grants and co-curator of the GLBT Reading Series of Intermedia Arts in MN