Synopses & Reviews
Poetry. Penelope Duckworth's first full collection of poetry, A COMMON GLORY, travels the outer landscape of the natural world exploring her roots in the farmland of southern Ohio; family place as she moved west and traveled abroad; and sacred space as she explored her spiritual heritage through study and priesthood in the Episcopal Church. Her poems also chronicle the inner landscape of grief for the deaths of her sister and father; of women's lives as she probes the stories of women in scripture, as well as touching her own occasions for joy, outrage, forgiveness, and gratitude. Working both in traditional forms and free verse, this accessible collection is a strong companion to her other writings.
"Carrying the sound of plain chant and wearing the scent of the sea, Penelope Duckworth's generous, deeply-felt poems record, witness, and celebrate each image, thought, and story they so richly bring forward and keep."
—Jane Hirshfield
"Penelope Duckworth's A COMMON GLORY is by turns lyrical, elegiac, and narrative. But no matter the form, each poem deftly considers our inherited world with gratitude and reverence, displaying the religious visionary's urge to humbly praise all that God has made."
—Ron Hansen
About the Author
Penelope Duckworth teaches writing at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA. She is an Episcopal priest and also serves as Artist-in-Residence at Trinity Cathedral in San Jose. She is the author of a book of sermons, I Am: Sermons on the Incarnation (Abingdon, 1996). Her second book, Mary: The Imagination of Her Heart (Cowley, 2004), won praise from Publisher's Weekly which wrote, "...her evident affection for the subject and her even-handed approach to some of the more controversial aspects of Marian devotion will appeal to those seeking a well-rounded portrait of one of the major figures in Christian history and worship." Mary Oliver also praised the book, "Penelope Duckworth's many-faceted meditation on Mary, the mother of Jesus, gave me, as even the few sentences in the New Testament could not, an understanding of Mary's influences throughout history, and even more important, perhaps, a vibrant tenderness for her experience, for her life. The text is fascinating, careful and yet lyrical. This book is pure gift." Her most recent book, Mary's Hours: Daily Prayers with the Mother of God, was published last spring by Morehouse. Her poems have appeared in The American Scholar, Yankee, The Christian Century, Poetry Northwest, and other journals and she has won prizes for her poetry from West Wind Review and Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, California.