First Goodreads Review of Gospel of the Throwaway Daughter

This morning I awakened to find a wonderful, perceptive review by Philip Dodd (author of Angel War) of my new poetry collection, Gospel of the Throwaway Daughter. In part, it reads:

Bravely, in her new book, Nancy Bevilaqua leaves behind the things she knows well, her life in America and modern times, and journeys into the East, and into the past, to what is now known as the Holy Land, two thousand years ago. Cleverly, in her poems, she has created a world, influenced by her reading of the New Testament and the Gnostic Gospels, but one that is very much her own. That the poems read like translations of ancient texts into modern English is a great achievement, I think. It makes the poems seem authentic. The voice that speaks in the verses, quite cleverly, is not that of a modern woman, but one that lived in the Holy Land, long ago. They are about those things that are always there, that will never go, love, truth, hate, death, redemption, prejudice, tyranny, freedom. The voice that speaks in the verses makes the reader aware of the threat of the Roman soldiers, the lions in the courtyard, the leopard on the branch, how bare life was then, closer to the bone, the root of things…

To read the rest of the review, go here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1139311064?book_show_action=false&ref=ru_lihp_up_rv_6_mclk-exp71cell164_exp69cell155-up2108920068

http://www.amazon.com/dp/150010759X

Gospel of the Throwaway Daughter

My poetry collection, Gospel of the Throwaway Daughter, should be out before Christmas. For the most part, the book is about my own vision of the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (and yes, I do believe that the relationship was intimate), and of their lives and those of the people around them at that time and place. Here are the blurbs that poets David Rawson, Kevin Davd LeMaster, Shaindel Beers, and Jordi Alonso wrote for the book after reading the manuscript:

“Nancy Bevilaqua’s poems beautifully incorporate the language of apocryphal and Gnostic texts, as well as Roman mythology, giving us pollinated lines full of an understanding of what it means to love supernaturally and to feel limited by our physicality. The characters of the New Testament are blooming, are transformed, are given true voices that are calling out past the limitations of the body. The images in these poems juxtapose the sand under our feet with stardust, uniting the sad truths of death, time, and money with elusive, honey-dripping truths that hint at a larger world.”

–David Rawson, Author of We Are Lovers Who Forgot Dinosaurs

“…Gospel of the Throwaway Daughter could well have been found tightly sealed in a jar in Qumran alongside its earlier gnostic cousins. These poems, quiet, but confident in their passion for love, desire, and holiness, echo to the Gospels and back. Taking the modernist dictum to heart to ‘make it new’, Bevilaqua, like H.D. before her, has taken stock of her poetic ancestry and focused it, channeling her myriad source texts, blending language, time, and voice, to create something lovely and new.”

–Jordi Alonso, Author of Honeyvoiced

“…takes a bold look at the New Testament and the Gnostic gospels, questioning belief, faith, dogma, and the nature of religion itself while creating a new world where ‘we will / find / what strangeness comes to bless.’ Despite the cruelty of the world both in biblical times, and now, we are reminded to ‘Pretend it doesn’t matter / how the hawk will devil fragile birds that we set free.’ Bevilaqua’s verse reassures us, ‘It’s only a matter of time / before a blessing / comes along’ in this beautiful, sensitive collection.”

–Shaindel Beers, Author of A Brief History of Time and The Children’s War and Other Poems

“…an ethereal, uplifting collection that weaves a poetic quilt of expertly crafted word choices and deep, sometimes dark imagery. It seems to blend a glimmer of hope with even the darkest poem, capturing the reader and holding him until the very end.”

–Kevin D. LeMaster, Tupelo Press 30/30 Poet