Forgotten Women: A Tribute in Poetry

Grace Cavalieri, in her monthly poetry book review for Washington Independent Review of Books, named Forgotten Women "Best Anthology."  The anthology includes poetry by Maria Mazziotti Gillan.

Forgotten Women: A Tribute in Poetry,
edited by Ginny Lowe Connors, introduction by Marilyn Kallet. Grayson Books. 191 pages.

It’s not so much that the poems are about women unknown or unsung – the book’s beauty is because there’re so many women we simply forget to honor – and these poems do that. There are also women figures not famous, maybe family members, in poems by such notables as Rita Dove and Ted Kooser. This book is a treasure chest of great poems; it just happens to be about women known and unknown. There’s more talent in this book than stars in a jar, multiple voices representing the best of human values – each poem chosen is a well-made thing about a notable female. There’s nothing we can’t do with words, like bringing to life Susan Erickson’s POW Nurses of Bataan, or Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s women in the factory ‘where my mother worked,’ or Vivian Shipley’s Radium Girls.

The book is divided into sections: Hard Work; Unknown to the World, the World to Someone; In the Shadows of Their Men; Making Herstory; Happy Is How I’ll Look.
I learned a lot about these women I should have known. And we love the book’s epigraph, said by Ann Richards: “After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan's most recent books are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow  and the poetry collection, What Blooms in Winter . Her collection of poems along with some of her paintings is The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets . Maria's official website is MariaGillan.com.

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