In Broken Latin: Poems
"Annette Spaulding-Convy'sIn Broken Latintakes everything you ever assumed about life in the convent and turns it on its head. Smart, sensuous, engaging--these poems balance fierceness with gentleness, humor with darkness, and they are innovative while still being understandable. Spaulding-Convy offers an intelligence and magnetism in her poems that is rarely seen in a first collection."--Kelli Russell Agodon, author ofLetters from the Emily Dickinson Room"Annette Spaulding-Convy'sIn Broken Latinis a lurid, sumptuous, shocking collection of poems, as intimate as any memoir. A  riveting portrait of the passions of the body as well as the soul,In Broken Latinis ecstatic and wise, brutal and tender. What a breathtaking debut!"--Julianna Baggott, author ofCompulsions of Silk Worms and BeesandLizzie Borden in Love"Annette Spaulding-Convy'sIn Broken Latinis a collection that leads us with intelligence, wit, and compassion through a woman's life in a nunnery and her slow disenchantment with the church. There's a spark of hidden sensuality and humor hidden beneath the habit, as displayed in one of my favorite poems of the collection, 'There Were No Rules about Underwear,' where a fireman breaks into a nun's room as she sleeps nude, saying he 'needs to feel your walls to see if they're hot.' The poems here contemplate the gruesome origins of desserts created for saints, the daily rituals of women in the convent, performing a fascinating balancing act of playful irreverence and deep thoughtfulness about spiritual exploration."--Jeannine Hall Gailey, author ofBecoming the VillainessandShe Returns to the Floating World"In Broken Latindisorders the ritualized life of a passionate and learned Roman Catholic nun, soon to leave her order for the joys and losses of a secular life, a woman's life with childbirth, depression, and rituals at the heart. Annette Spaulding-Convy was a nun and she is a poet. After she leaves the convent, she imagines finding her habit in the closet: "Maybe on the back, I'll sketch a rib / returning to man because it's tired / of the story . . ." Wit, learning, candor, and formal discipline raise the poems, which soar like spirit for the reader's pleasure."--Hilda Raz, author ofWhat HappensandTrans