Marilyn Sewell Knihy

Minister, author, and activist Marilyn Sewell reflects on the everyday, the places we live and work, the thoughts we all have but hardly ever share, though they may carry the most profound of our human concerns. Using a variety of short literary forms—dramatic monologues, vignettes, letters, prose poems, lists, surrealistic tales—Sewell presents quirky, ironic, and compassionate slices of life that will bring laughter and at the same time take you deeper into the mysteries of existence. Sewell pushes for the thin, startling light beneath the confusion and chaos of our daily living: a woman worries that her cat loves her partner more than her; a man and a woman talk past each other in a therapy session; a lonely woman is distressed because her plant has stopped blooming. Together these short, compelling readings shine a light on the cultural incongruities and inanities which crowd our existence. We love, we lose, we die, and through it all, we ask, “What’s it all about?”

Brimming over with the inspirational words and thoughts of some of our finest writers, Cries of the Spirit is a beautiful sourcebook of poetry and prose in praise of life and all that it entails. Here women's voices fill the age-old silence about matters central to their experience-from menstruation, sexual intimacy, and childbirth to caretaking, household rituals, and death. These writings represent a healing vision of the sacred that emerges from the particular consciousness of women-a vision that partakes of the world of earth and flesh.