Jeanne Murray Walker said of Julie L. Moore’s earlier collection: “Her poetry refrains from overstatement and extravagant gesture. It delineates many subtle colors on the palette of human suffering and faithfully documents nuances of joy.” This same strength was clear to me when I received the manuscript for Particular Scandals. I was immediately drawn in, poem after poem, and knew I wanted to include it in the Poiema Poetry Series.
The following poem is from Particular Scandals, and was the 2008 winner of the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize from Ruminate, as selected by Luci Shaw.
Confession
----Mark 5:24-34
And in the twelfth year, there was still
--------blood. And so many difficult degrees
of separation. Everything, at this point,
--------burned. The once-soft skin of her labia.
The pathetic pulp of her womb.
--------And the mass of hard questions.
Pressing on her like the crowds
--------bearing down on him.
She knew the rules: Keep your hands
--------to yourself. Whatever you touch you foul.
But she reached for him anyway.
--------Fastened her un-
clean fingers, tipped
--------with outrageous nerve,
onto the lip of his cloak.
--------While he sensed the tug
of the siphon, the precious liquid of his power
--------tapped, she felt her river of red
drain, the fierce spear of her pain
--------withdraw.
He wanted to know who grasped
--------such scandalous and particular
faith. Never again would she soil
--------a place where she lay. So she fell
at his feet. Confessed.
Posted with permission of the poet.
This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Julie L. Moore: second post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca
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