Overview

The Long Devotion is a collection of poems, essays, and writing prompts that celebrates motherhood and creates a space, as poet Molly Spencer has written, to ""tell an unlovely truth about family life and not have to take it back."" The poets in this book represent and describe a wide range of experiences. They write about encountering the world anew through their children; intersections of parenting and race; single parenting; adoptive, foster, and step-parenting; life with chronic illness, mental illness, and disability; and the choice to remain childless. The book is divided into four parts. ""Difficulty, Ambivalence, and Joy"" considers the wonder and challenges of parenting—including infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, and life with children—and trying to write in the midst of those demands. ""The Body and the Brain"" explores the cerebral and bodily labor of caregiving and writing. ""In the World"" brings parents and their children into contact with the natural and political landscape. Finally, ""Transitions"" looks at how parenting and writing change as children grow up. Poems range from linear narratives and imagistic lyric to poetry comics, speculative futures, and experimental forms. Essays and poems suggest ways to write through the disruptions and chaos of family life. Prompts invite readers to use the work in this book as a starting point for their own poetry. As candid accounts of motherhood become more prevalent across literary, pop culture, and digital spaces, the way we talk about writing and mothering is changing. Poets have long challenged traditional motherhood narratives. This book brings together a new generation of exciting and provocative voices for the first time.

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9780820360546

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Reviews

A necessary text for every mother laboring to make space for her writing in this world.--Katherine Indermaur Colorado Review I loved reading this book--a compelling and timely anthology of poetry and nonfiction devoted to the theme of motherhood. . . .Editors Perez and Reddy have taken care to organize four sections that offer real insight into the facets of mothering, and they are inclusive in their selections.--Sandra Beasley author of Made to Explode This anthology fulfills a need in the poetry anthology market because not only does it address typical motherhood and its challenges, but also single parenting, foster motherhood and adoption, and even more importantly, perspectives across class, race, and sexual preference.--Jeannine Hall Gailey author of Field Guide to the End of the World This worthy book succeeds in its central aspirations: to realize the rich, creative synergies between writing and mothering; to offer sustainable strategies for navigating the demanding and undetermined intersections--bodily, psychologically, ethically, politically, etc.--of writing and mothering; and to promote the knowing of motherhood as valuable both to those who read and write through its lenses, as well as those who don't (yet) share this diverse vantage on humanity.--Geffrey Davis author of Night Angler

"A necessary text for every mother laboring to make space for her writing in this world.--Katherine Indermaur ""Colorado Review"" I loved reading this book--a compelling and timely anthology of poetry and nonfiction devoted to the theme of motherhood. . . .Editors Pérez and Reddy have taken care to organize four sections that offer real insight into the facets of mothering, and they are inclusive in their selections.--Sandra Beasley ""author of Made to Explode"" This anthology fulfills a need in the poetry anthology market because not only does it address ""typical motherhood"" and its challenges, but also single parenting, foster motherhood and adoption, and even more importantly, perspectives across class, race, and sexual preference.--Jeannine Hall Gailey ""author of Field Guide to the End of the World"" This worthy book succeeds in its central aspirations: to realize the rich, creative synergies between writing and mothering; to offer sustainable strategies for navigating the demanding and undetermined intersections--bodily, psychologically, ethically, politically, etc.--of writing and mothering; and to promote the knowing of motherhood as valuable both to those who read and write through its lenses, as well as those who don't (yet) share this diverse vantage on humanity.--Geffrey Davis ""author of Night Angler"""

I loved reading this book--a compelling and timely anthology of poetry and nonfiction devoted to the theme of motherhood. . . .Editors Perez and Reddy have taken care to organize four sections that offer real insight into the facets of mothering, and they are inclusive in their selections.--Sandra Beasley author of Made to Explode This anthology fulfills a need in the poetry anthology market because not only does it address typical motherhood and its challenges, but also single parenting, foster motherhood and adoption, and even more importantly, perspectives across class, race, and sexual preference.--Jeannine Hall Gailey author of Field Guide to the End of the World This worthy book succeeds in its central aspirations: to realize the rich, creative synergies between writing and mothering; to offer sustainable strategies for navigating the demanding and undetermined intersections--bodily, psychologically, ethically, politically, etc.--of writing and mothering; and to promote the knowing of motherhood as valuable both to those who read and write through its lenses, as well as those who don't (yet) share this diverse vantage on humanity.--Geffrey Davis author of Night Angler

Author Information

Camille T. Dungy is an associate professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. She is the author of two poetry collections, What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison and Suck on the Marrow, and has helped edit two other poetry anthologies.

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