Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 157

REVIEWS

"In Gratitude for a Southern Baptist Upbringing," in which the
speaker engages the age-old battle between spiritual discipline
and the wants of the flesh. The speaker, having been brought
up with sermons about sin preached to her by "My father, his
father, all the family men" in "heavy cannon voices," struggles
with oncoming puberty and at some point compares herself to
Eve, the mother of mankind and the bringer of sin into paradise
(their names are even alike), but is pleased she has so far resisted
temptation:
I've heard so much about sin in church. I knew enough
to go at it whole heart, when the time came for sex.
I'm glad to be woman, brought up right:
to sing desire in my own voice.

The theme is developed more aggressively in part 2, "Why the
Groundhog Fears Her Shadow." The speaker, having achieved
sexual maturity, is able to reflect on the causes of her own sexual
abuse. As is often the case with victims of such abuse, there is
much self-blame, and the speaker is not immune to this. In
poems such as "The Center Cannot" and "The Child Born," she
seeks to trace some evolutionary pattern that might have led to
her abuse. Was it her being the eldest daughter? Was it the color
of her hair? Her eyes? She suggests her mother shares the blame
in "The Dream Runs On" owing to her indifference and belief that
she must "train the girls to act like boys," / "to cover up, learn a
shadow's oblique slide" / into dark corners . . ."
"Why the Groundhog Fears Her Shadow" and "How Two
Became One Again" are more stark shouts of rage, conveyed with
Plath-like intensity, while the "quieter" "Woman in the Middle"
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Modern Age - Winter 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2016

Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Cover1
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Cover2
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 2
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Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Cover3
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