Cora Fry's Pillow Book

Through the persona of Cora Fry a wife and mother living in a small New Hampshire town Rosellen Brown explores the ambivalent ties of love loyalty marriage and family in a series of related poems. This volume includes the entire text of Cora Fry (1977) a kind of dramatic monologue written in spare simple lines which describes the young woman''s daily life and troubled marriage. A sequel of newer poems Cora Fry''s Pillow Book (1994) confronts the challenges that come with a woman''s growth toward middle age reflecting an older Cora''s place in her family community and the larger world.