Crossroads and Unholy Water

Back Cover

 “Crossroads and Unholy Water is a first book by Marilene Phipps, but this wonderful collection embodies a fully initiated voice that dares some old truths through youthful language. These poems are earned; they are woven around the breastpin of experience. In fact, this collection embraces awe and woe through curses and praise that unearth a meeting place for the unspeakable as well as culminant beauty—a book of acknowledgment and ritual.” —Yusef Komunyakaa, author of Thieves of Paradise and NeonVernacular “Marilene Phipps is an exquisite poet. In her work, dragonflies flirt with water, children fly blouse kites, the Virgin appears in a blue and yellow mist to comfort the river women, the worshippers, the nonbelievers, the bereaved, and all of us. Through Phipps’s lyrical visions and breathtaking images, we are all transformed.” —Edwidge Danticat, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Farming of Bones Marilene Phipps is a poet and a painter who was born and grew up in Haiti.The  Grolier Poetry Prize winner , she has been both a Guggenheim and Harvard University Bunting Institute fellow. She has won fellowships for the year – at theW. E. B. Du Bois Institute and the Center for the Study of World Religions, both at Harvard. Her poetry has been anthologized in Beacon’s Best of . Crossroads and Unholy Water is Phipps’s first full-length collection of poems.       Printed in the United States of America Cover illustration: “Haitian Pastorale” by Marilene Phipps. ″x″ oil on canvas. Collection Lee and Joanne Lyon, Aspen, CO. Cover design: Erin Kirk New Southern Illinois University Press ..   ,  - www.siu.edu/~siupress  ---                   ISBN 0-8093-2306-0 9 7 8 0 8 0 9 3 2 3 0 6 7 9 0 0 0 0 Photo Frank Monkiewicz Phipps_Indd_cvr.indd 1 9/20/12 11:29 AM ...