Mules of Love: Poems

By Ellen Bass

Book Overview

Balancing heart-intelligent intimacy and surprising humor, the poems in Ellen Bass's Mules of Love illuminate the essential dynamics of our lives: family, community, sexual love, joy, loss, religion and death. The poems also explore the darker aspects of humanity--personal, cultural, historical and environmental violence--all of which are handled with compassion and grace. Bass's poetic gift is her ability to commiserate with others afflicted by similar hungers and grief. Her poem "Insomnia" concludes: "may something/ comfort you--a mockingbird, a breeze, rain/ on the roof, Chopin's Nocturnes, the thought/ of your child's birth, a kiss, / or even me--in my chilly kitchen/ with my coat on--thinking of you."

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Author Tour:
- Berkeley
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Ellen Bass is co-author (with Laura Davis) of the best-selling The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins 1988, 1994), which has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into nine languages. She has also published several volumes of poetry, and her poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Double Take, and Field. In 1980, Ms. Bass was awarded the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati. Last year, she won Nimrod/Hardman's Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, judged by Thomas Lux. She was nominated for a 2001 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, where she has taught creative writing for 25 years. She has also taught writing workshops at many conferences nationally and in Mallorca, Spain.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1929918224
• ISBN13: 9781929918225
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: BOA Editions
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Real Life Poems With Heart

Some people might like dry, boring poetry that you have to practically de-code to understand, but I love simple poems that are about real life---poems I can relate to that touch my heart. I heard one of Ms. Bass's poems read on NPR and was instantly hooked and had to have one of her books (I later looked through several anthologies I have and found several of her poems in them). I highly recommend this book if you love simple, soulful poetry that feeds your spirit and heart.

Ellen Bass is worth your attention.

Fine poetry, sensitive, honesty and caring. Would make a great gift for any woman, but expecially someone gay as she addresses this in some of the poems.

OUR STUNNING HARVEST with MULES OF LOVE

As part of the women's movement of the 70's and 80's I was led to EB poetry and loved it...the personal, the public, the political all finally merging together....I could ID with the content and it nurtured my causes. I was an east coast radical want-a-be. Now 20 years later it is so wonderful to view again the intimacy, the wisdom, the vulnerability presented in MULES OF LOVE....it has much more universal appeal. I sent the book as a gift to several friends in different age groups and they all appreciated it. She will catch your heart, trigger your pleasure center, knock the cobwebs off of those hidden parts of you....that you knew were always there. You will enjoy the lines and you will come to enjoy your own little space.

"Mighty Strong Poems"

Ellen Bass takes the dry straw of everyday life and spins it into gold. We've all been there, done that -- traveled down the same roads. But, Ellen takes the blinders off and sees things through the eyes of an artist. In "Mules of Love," she shares the joy with us.

Real Life With all its Quirks

It's not often we get to read poetry that is immediately accessible, immediately relevant. In deeply touching, powerful language Ellen Bass tells us stories that make us stop, breathe and consider our lives. We see a deer in a bubble bath, an eighty-six year old rediscovering his sexual essence and a woman comforted by a quiet nap shared with an anonymous seatmate on a plane. As the events of the day lie, telling us we are separate and different, Ellen Bass' poetry shows us the truth -- worldwide, never have we been more as one.