Publisher's Synopsis
Taking its theme from the Annunciation, the title-sequence of this book is the spiritual biography of Gillian Allnutt's imagined 90-year-old self. She comes to know this "elder ego" through writing about the stubborn, proud, possessive Nantucket, who changes a too-long-lingering angel Gabriel as he falls under her mad spell. Her fourth collection is dominated by powerful old women, including the mystic Julian of Norwich. Delving back into her personal history as well as into our collective history, Gillian Allnutt finds the Crone, that sometimes sinister, sometimes wise old woman, and through writing these poems of imagination and discovery, recovers precious knowledge of her own lost grandmother. Shortlisted for the T.S.Eliot Prize.
