Through the persona of Cora Fry, a wife and mother living in a small New Hampshire town, Rosellen Brown explores the ambivalent ties of love, loyalty, marriage, and family in a series of related poems. This volume includes the entire text of Cora Fry (1977), a kind of dramatic monologue, written in spare, simple lines, which describes the young woman’s daily life and troubled marriage. A sequel of newer poems, Cora Fry’s Pillow Book (1994), confronts the challenges that come with a woman’s growth toward middle age, reflecting an older Cora’s place in her family, community, and the larger world.
“Full of humor, truth, anger, and tenderness . . . Rosellen Brown has given us a novel stripped down to essences in this remarkable set of poems, the vivid evocations of a country woman’s life.” – May Sarton.
