God Had a Body

<p>The mind and the body. The heavens and earth. God and animal. The speaker in <i>God had a body</i> considers how the image of a higher power is presented to her beginning with a Catholic upbringing in Kentucky. Speckled with stars and peopled with creatures these poems employ a trinity of sequences that address a present past and possible future--from a troubled reckoning with belief to loss and promise still ahead.<br />In this debut collection from Jennie Malboeuf we observe undercurrents of violence and power the dynamics of memory gender marriage and miscarriage. At times God is brutal. At times delicate. Through true stories of animal savagery <i>God had a body</i> unravels human behavior and undoes the opaque and cryptic mysteries of faith.</p>