Vexed

When asked how to pray, Jesus advises his listeners to be brief, unlike those who ""think that they will be heard because of their many words"" (Matt 7:8). This statement, like many others in scriptures, raises questions. How many words are too many, and how else besides words to ponder Holy Writ? In these poems, Elizabeth Poreba seeks to keep Jesus' advice in mind while examining her life as a convert from a Puritan-infused Congregationalism to Roman Catholicism. ""Where else would you find a poem connecting the bombing of Hiroshima and the Feast of the Transfiguration? Derived from her deep study of religion and life lived and examined, Elizabeth Poreba's poems are unflinching explorations, truth-facing: 'That's my self on the way out.' With her signature wry humor, Poreba--thoughtful, feminist--opens new interpretations on old stories, from Jonah to female saints, showing that questioning can be reaffirmation of faith."" --Katrinka Moore, author of Numa and Thief ""'To the searching eye, / any thing/ can suggest an opening.' This terrific last stanza of 'Cryptic, ' in Elizabeth Poreba's Vexed, is also a crisp description of what she offers her lucky readers. Poreba lets us in on her deeply moving, spiritual, and ultimately forgiving take on this world and the savage past that shaped it. She's a fierce warrior of faith, the best kind--the one that is questioned again and again. Her great economy of language suits that pursuit. --Sarah Stern, author of But Today Is Different and Another Word For Love ""This wonderful collection explores, sometimes with wry humor, the vexing dichotomy between the intellect and the soul. In the poet's search for tangible evidence of faith within the ephemeral self, and the external world, her heart 'seeks brightness, / but its progress . . . ragged.' The reader's heart is also brightened by this beautiful collection. We come away from it, not 'vexed, ' but moved and uplifted, brought in touch with our own souls."" --Mary Stewart Hammond, author of Out of Canaan Elizabeth Poreba taught English in New York City high schools for thirty-five years and now volunteers as a docent at the Old Merchant's House in Manhattan, a tutor of conversational English at New York University, and a foot soldier for the Sierra Club. She has published a chapbook, The Family Calling (2011). Her poems have appeared in Ducts.org, First Literary Review East and Commonweal, among other print and online publications.