Familiar and Forgiveness

       Familiar and Forgiveness references forgiveness of self and others from losses, mistakes, misgivings and human errors, in tones varying between humour and skepticism, grief and redemption, and honesty and absurdity. The first section, Familiar, is from the wry, droll, imaginative, and sometimes melancholy point of view of my familiar or alter ego, Cujo. The second section, Forgiveness, expresses my healing through interaction with natural elements: trees, wind, faeries, sprites, the Archangel Gabriel and Celtic cards. This part expresses a woman’s transformation from brokenness to wholeness and her transformation from breakdown to breakthrough, as well as environmental exhortations to heal our planet. Familiar and Forgiveness is replete with allusions to mystic traditions and contemplative wisdom and feminist spirituality.           My work stylistically adheres to traditional verse forms (employing rhyme, fixed stanza structures, and metrical patterns). Yet, it just as easily veers into the contemporary with meta-textual references to William Carlos Williams, my ancestor the Welsh mystic Henry Vaughan, the Welsh goddess Cerridwen, pagan deities, Wicca, and shamanic and divinatory lore.