Back to the Light

Acclaimed poet George Ella Lyon returns with a brilliant new collection that traces the arc of a woman's life from girlhood to mature womanhood. In answer to the first poem, "Little Girl Who Knows Too Much," Lyon embarks on a journey from a child who was silenced to "Some Big Loud Woman" who claims the right to a voice. Along the way she meets allies and guides including Dickinson, Woolf, Mary Travers, Grace Paley, and the giver of dreams. As sailors once navigated by the stars, so Lyon navigates by these luminaries. They are not distant, though. Their light is always near.

Alternately witty, tender, shocking, and visionary, Back to the Light reveals the reunion of body and spirit, truth and story. In the process, it demonstrates the power of poetry to liberate and to heal.