M: Poems

Dale Kushner’s collection of poetry M testifies to the heroic dimensions of women’s lives. The urgent voices in these poems, including Mary Magdalene, Eve, the Virgin Mary, and women experiencing violence across centuries and continents, are bearers of the sacred into the profane world of history—of men and war. The speakers in a series of dramatic monologues explore both radical and tender moments that break through the myths perpetuated in the name of the feminine. The poems are an enduring map of how resilience is forged from suffering and how desire, loss, and struggle are the spiritual path to transformation.