Hanging On Our Own Bones

“Skin, jail, butterfly, hospital, street, mother, father, blood, war: such words come alive as survivor, witness, and guide Judy Grahn uses the tried and true heart of the ballad to explore the socially unsaid and unsayable. Animated by the heroism and mythology of the everyday, and armed with attention and wisdom, she is a fierce warrior for the clarity of the human story.”—Ammiel Alcalay, author of neither wit nor gold

“Hanging on Our Own Bones collects over forty years of what Judy Grahn calls her ‘nine-part poems,’ and here clearly identifies them as ‘lamentations.’ All the poets I know look upon Judy Grahn with admiration and awe, convinced that she’s leagues ahead of us, superhuman in her power and insight. But the poet of these chants of grief and frustration—and hope—is human for sure, torn by the same powerlessness and disgust at prevalent social conditions as the rest of us—it’s only that she has lightning at her command—a magic of writing that illuminates shreds darkness like confetti, and lets us see past the end of each page, past all our histories, a magic that lets us glimpse a previously unimagined future.”—Kevin Killian, author of Impossible Princess