Some Bones and a Story

Susan McKnight is an administrator of the Courts Technology Integrated Justice Project at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

Alice Major has created beautiful poetic stories based on the lives of
various female saints, some well known and some obscure. In the book’s
afterword, she writes: “I took the bare bones of biographical events
and built my own stories around them. I tried not to actively contradict
what I knew to be historically the case.” Some of the pieces are
written as if spoken by the woman herself, while others are insights
delivered through second persons. St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin
Mary, describes teaching her intelligent daughter to read as a child and
refers with pride to her daughter’s marriage and motherhood, as any
modern mother would. Especially fascinating are those subjects who
appear bewildered and questioning of the sainthood bestowed on them by
the church because they felt they were simply living their lives as they
were taught.

Major has written five other poetry books, including Tales for an Urban
Sky (1999) for which she won the inaugural Poet’s Corner Award. This
is another fine collection.