A stunning debut collection from the winner of the Fall 2022 Host Publications Chapbook Prize.
In But for I Am a Woman, Sophia Stid's work explores the intersection of personal autonomy and deep spiritual connection through the writings and life of Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342-1416), a mystic who was the first woman known to write a book in the English language, "a woman who had herself / declared dead / so she could write." Through this companionship, Stid creates a reliquary of language, poems as physical containers for the sacred, gathered like loose rosary beads from the floorboards. It is through the physical body that these poems eloquently chisel a space for reconciliation and grief-healing, bathing "in water, words, and other lives."
"[But for I Am a Woman] is filled with too many exquisite lines to count that stopped me in my tracks, but the true success is the work as a whole, the excavation of grief, womanhood, isolation, and freedom across time and difference. The speaker learns from Julian, takes what she can use, and then chooses her own path to freedom."--Emily Temple, LitHub
Poetry. Women's Studies.
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