The Girls In Their Iron Shoes by Eileen Moeller

$14.99

 

Eileen Moeller has “poured us a cup of sisterhood” in The Girls in Their Iron Shoes. When I read her poems I encounter many women: mothers, daughters, brides, widows, the Madonna, Ophelia, hens, wrens, and folkloric figures, such as nymphs- and of course, “the girl in the iron shoes.” In most instances, Moeller’s women are confined and intimidated by fathers and husbands who are silent, hunched over, or worse, who “break a circle of bone with [his] fist.” In the poem “Widow,” she describes a girl as “fragrant.” I love this choice of word for its earthiness, the warmth and sweetness it evokes. I call it Moelleresque, like these short, precise, Dickinsonian poems about the sensual, mysterious, mythic, and patient inner lives of women. -Cindy Day, author of Amends, published by Finishing Line Press What a pleasure to read The Girls In Their Iron Shoes, a collection whose very title tutors us to expect the unpredictable, the surprising, the strange, but the plausible (after all, I suppose, girls could wear iron shoes, it’s not impossible). The short lyrics that comprise this collection are at once revealing and withholding-they tell, they don’t tell; imply yet elusively-not as tease, not to play games, but to bring about complexity and dimension that is built tonally rather than just through narrative. These are strong poems, then, about what is said and also about what is not said. Always clear, always accessible, never cryptic, these poems are fluid and revealing even as they off their speakers, their characters hold onto privacy and dignity. This is a strong collection to be read first poem to second to third, and so on. A fine achievement. -Martha Rhodes, author of four collections, most recently, The Beds, Autumn House 2012, and founding member and director of Four Way Books Eileen Moeller’s The Girls In Their Iron Shoes is a book of grace and pleasures. Its joy and darkness, its crucial narratives, give us the myths of our times. In Driving Through The Countryside, Moeller reports, remarkably: Every farm has a graveyard, / with a fence around it to keep the cows out… barns are laid out like broken arks… parents shovel some casserole into their mouths. Trio, Monster, Legend, and Flare are among the indispensable and beautiful poems here. The river must have lured / Ophelia this way: we are lured, as well, by emotional power and beauty that soars as we wander inside our longing.

–Leonard Gontarek, Contributing Editor, The American Poetry Review

 

 

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The Girls In Their Iron Shoes

 by Eileen Moeller

$14.99, paper

978-1-63534-142-3

2017

Eileen Moeller grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, and has lived in many places with her husband Charles, a psychologist, most recently in Medford, New Jersey. She earned an M.A. in Creative Writing, from Syracuse University in 1991, and taught writing there for fifteen years. She was also a teaching artist for Central New York Community Arts Council, and taught creative writing at local art centers, libraries, at Pratt at MWPI, and at Hamilton College. Her first book, titled Firefly, Brightly Burning, was published by Grayson Books in 2015. Her poems have also appeared in anthologies and literary journals, in the United States and in England, most recently in: Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women’s Spiritualty, ed. Marilyn Swell, Beacon Press 1987; Claiming The Spirit Within: A Sourcebook Of Women’s Poetry, ed. Marilyn Sewell, Beacon Press 1994; Caprice 1996; Writing Women (England)1997; Poetry London Newsletter 1997; The Nerve: A Writing Women Anthology, Virago Press, 1997; Feminist Studies, Summer 2002 and Spring 2003; The Paterson Literary Review 2005; Paterson: A Poet’s City Anthology 2005; Blue Fifth Review (online) 2007; Comstock Review 2007; Philadelphia Stories 2007; Women.Period: an anthology 2008; Kritya (online) 2008; Philadelphia Stories 2008; Melusine (online) 2009; Fox Chase Review 2009; Umbrella (online) 2009; The Wild 2009; Paterson Literary Review 2010; Ars Medica Spring 2010; Poems of Awakening, ed. Betsy Small 2010; A CD, Snow White Turns Sixty, by contemporary composer Dale Trumbore 2011; Ars Medica Fall 2012; Sugar Mule (online) Special Walt Whitman Issue 2012; Philadelphia Stories (online); Philadelphia Stories (online) Summer 2013; Schuylkill Valley Journal Spring 2013; Grit, Gravity & Grace: New Poems about Medicine and Healthcare ed. Rhonda L. Soricelli M.D. and Jack Coulehan, M.D., M.P.H., Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities, 2015; 50 Over Fifty: A Celebration of Established and Emerging Women Writers ed. Carla Spataro, PS Books, 2016. Her blog, And So I Sing: Poems And Iconography can be accessed at http: //eileenmoeller.blogspot.com

Eileen Moeller has an M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, where she taught for fifteen years. She now lives in the Philadelphia area. She’s had poems in Ars Medica, Feminist Studies, Paterson Literary Review, Blue Fifth Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal,  Philadelphia Stories, and in a number of anthologies. Her first book, Firefly, Brightly Burning, was published by Grayson Books in 2015. Her blog: And So I Sing: Poems And Iconography, is online athttp://eileenmoeller.blogspot.com.

 

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