OPEN HEART. (ORIGINAL POETRY)

Open Heart is a collection of lyric, narrative, and dramatic poems in six sections. Taken together, the poems ask what there is in the social and cultural institutions we have received that a woman can value. Each section addresses some realm of human values as applied to women\u27s lives. Section one concerns itself with doubt, hope, and the uncertainty surrounding death, primarily through the speaker\u27s examination of her religious heritage and her inability to fully accept its offering. The second section measures marriage and traditional roles of women against the myths and fairy tales in which such roles are offered as the highest good for women. Section three--the doll poems--takes up some of the negative ramifications of women\u27s acceptance of traditional roles; however, the poems often turn toward an affirmation of the love bequeathed to children by their parents, especially in the dramatic monologues, in which a doll or another speaker addresses the reader. The poems in section four look closely at and respond to art created by women as a means of exploring relationships between women and of recognizing female heroism, endurance and creativity. In section five women try to help one another confront the pain and losses of aging and the narrow standard of beauty their culture demands in women, even as they recognize their own impulses to achieve such a dangerous standard. Open Heart\u27s final section returns to an emphasis on family, with a focus on inheritance. While no solution has been reached concerning the basis for faith, and much doubt has been cast on traditional religious and cultural values, the poems\u27 speaker finds models of endurance in two great-grandmothers, in a sister who uses traditional arts to her own purposes, in the return of seasons and the celebrations of holidays, and in the birth and survival of children, even against the odds