Dreadful Wind & Rain

by Erin Ganju

Overview

Once upon a time, there lived a girl whose story was not her own. . .

So the story goes: Neglected and abused by her family, eclipsed by her elder and more beautiful sister, a young girl longs for happily-ever-after, for something, someone to rescue her. She is soon swept away into the next chapter of her life: marriage—a promising world mirroring Old Testament stories and fairy tale traditions. But loving just anyone and living the age-old “ever-after” narrative, as it turns out, fails to bring true happiness after all. Dragged down by a destructive marriage, her sister’s continued manipulations, and the growing weight of roles and expectations created by others at her back, she must choose between continuing in her familiar, complacent life, or boldly breaking free—and finally making her own way.

Named for an Appalachian murder ballad in which a girl is drowned by her sister, this lyrical fairy tale unseats expectations for what it means to live a fairy tale life, revealing the powerful force that comes from stripping away the traditional roles and beginning to write a story all your own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597097499
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	04/24/2017
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Diane Gilliam is the author of three previous collections of poetry: Kettle Bottom (2004), One of Everything (2003), and Recipe for Blackberry Cake (chapbook, 1999). She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Ohio State University. She has received an Individual Artist Grant from the Ohio
Arts Council, the Chaffi n Award for Appalachian Writing, Th e Ohioana Library Association Poetry Book of the Year Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She is the most recent recipient of the $50,000 Gift of Freedom literary award and lives in Akron, OH.

Table of Contents

I Girl

Girl 13

Tale 14

The Father's Story 16

Favorite Dress 17

The Bargain 18

Something About Leah 19

The Naming of the Scars 22

Shadow Play 24

The Knot 26

Once 28

II Anyone

Tender 31

His and Hers 33

The Fairest of Them All 34

The Message 35

Threshold 36

Leah Will Say Nothing 37

Horror 39

Driving Home From the Store, He Says Your Sister Called 40

Except Through Me 41

Ringstraked 42

The Heart 43

All That Drowned Beauty 44

Bluebeard Variation 45

The Twelfth Wise Woman 46

Now 47

For Goodness Sake 48

Oh, Honey 50

Fair and Tender Ladies 52

First Divorce 54

III Or Else

Deed 57

On the Silence of Cotton 59

She Starts To Slow Down 60

Still Joy 61

Harvest 63

Three Things That Happened Yesterday 66

Lots of Ships 68

It's Not Up To You, Sweetheart 69

Small Song, or, Cosmology 70

How I Don't Know 71

Some Things the Doorways Want To Tell Us 72

Maybe This Will Help 73

Where I'm From 75

An Invisible Story 77

Or Else 78

The Apple 79

Sorting the Seeds 80

Way Down at the Bottom of Everything Where It's All Mixed Up and Everyone Is Everyone 82

Begotten 83

Stones 85

IV After

Psalm of Leah 89

I and Thou 90

Soul Retrieval 91

Leaving the Story 92

Notes 93

Editorial Reviews

“Like all the most original poetry, Dreadful Wind & Rain draws its singular power from the place of origins, as female figures from fairy tales and Bible stories are transformed to confront, and ultimately transcend, the damage and entrapment of familial cruelty and betrayal. These intimate voices, interwoven with her own, informed by a deep confidence in the inner life, together create that extraordinary venture: the imaginative transit of a change of heart—a restorative grace.” —Eleanor Wilner, author of The Girl with Bees in Her Hair

“Ache and lift and veracity tambourine through these lines and stanzas. This new Diane Gilliam collection exults its power inside our ears and through our hearts in a rich, stinging, marvelous way. We are never ready for what she has to tell us. Never ready for how tall her words can reach through the trees. I believe that Diane Gilliam Fisher is incorruptible as a poet.” —Nikky Finney, author of Head Off & Split, winner of the National Book Award

From the Publisher