Particular Scandals: A Book of Poems

Broad in scope--theological, ecological, and personal--and acutely particular in details--witnessed and lived--the affecting poems in Particular Scandals explore how one endures suffering, avoiding the clichés of both bitterness and transcendence. Thus, while Moore\u27s poetry depicts the debilitating ruin illness wreaks, it also embraces the beauty and mystery in creation, in faith, even in tribulation itself. At the book\u27s core is pure paradox and insightful integration, wedding Christmas--Christ\u27s incarnation and eventual, willing sacrifice--to pain and grief. Thus, on the heels of Moore\u27s multiple surgeries and amid her husband\u27s serious heart problem--both while in their forties--come flashes of hallelujah and songs knit with Amens un- / broken, like a world without end. Empathetic and observant, Moore\u27s evocative poems also turn their attention to friends\u27 and other family members\u27 appalling losses: a stillborn infant, suicidal adolescents, molested, and trafficked children. All in all, the book portrays how Moore survives like the Sycamore tree in one of her poems, scabbed and scarred from moments like this, offering her empty self / like a cup to the Lord of the storm.https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/faculty_books/1153/thumbnail.jp