Balancing heart-intelligent intimacy and surprising humor, the poems in Ellen Bass's "Mules of Love" illuminate the essential dynamics of our lives: family, community, sexual love, joy, loss, religion and death. The poems also explore the darker aspects of humanity--personal, cultural, historical and environmental violence--all of which are handled with compassion and grace. Bass's poetic gift is her ability to commiserate with others afflicted by similar hungers and grief. Her poem "Insomnia" concludes: "may something/ comfort you--a mockingbird, a breeze, rain/ on the roof, Chopin's Nocturnes, the thought/ of your child's birth, a kiss, / or even me--in my chilly kitchen/ with my coat on--thinking of you."

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Ellen Bass is co-author (with Laura Davis) of the best-selling "The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse" (HarperCollins 1988, 1994), which has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into nine languages. She has also published several volumes of poetry, and her poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including "The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Double Take," and "Field." In 1980, Ms. Bass was awarded the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati. Last year, she won Nimrod/Hardman's Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, judged by Thomas Lux. She was nominated for a 2001 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, where she has taught creative writing for 25 years. She has also taught writing workshops at many conferences nationally and in Mallorca, Spain.

A reissue of the now-classic anthology (with more than 60,000 copies sold) of deeply moving testimonies by survivors of child sexual abuse--with a new afterword by Ellen Bass, co-author of The Courage to Heal.

Come to terms with your past while moving powerfully into the future

The Courage to Heal is an inspiring, comprehensive guide that offers hope and a map of the healing journey to every woman who was sexually abused as a child--and to those who care about her. Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.

Weaving together personal experience with professional knowledge, the authors provide clear explanations, practical suggestions, and support throughout the healing process. Readers will feel recognized and encouraged by hundreds of moving first-person stories drawn from interviews and the authors' extensive work with survivors, both nationally and internationally.

This completely revised and updated 20th anniversary edition continues to provide the compassionate wisdom the book has been famous for, as well as many new features:

Contemporary research on trauma and the brain

An overview of powerful new healing tools such as imagery, meditation, and body-centered practices

Additional stories that reflect an even greater diversity of survivor experiences

The reassuring accounts of survivors who have been healing for more than twenty years

The most comprehensive, up-to-date resource guide in the field

Insights from the authors' decades of experience

Cherished by survivors, and recommended by therapists and institutions everywhere, The Courage to Heal has often been called the bible of healing from child sexual abuse. This new edition will continue to serve as the healing beacon it has always been.

Based on the experiences of hundreds of survivors, this work profiles victims who share the challenges and triumphs of their personal healing processes. Inspiring and comprehensive, it offers mental, emotional and physical support to all people who are in the process of rebuilding their lives. It offers hope, encouragement and practical advice to every woman who was sexually abused as a child and answers some vital questions including where the decision to heal starts, how you can break the silence, who will listen and the therapy, support groups and organizations that are available.

A must-read anthology of life-altering personal experiences. The events a in a woman's life etch indelible changes. These personal essays and poems mark significant life events from early formative experiences to vibrant later years. Read stories from a war correspondent, the first female on an all-male college swim team, a woman visiting her ex-husband at his new commune. Strong women caring for parents and children, fighting oppression, facing arranged marriages, bridging cultural and gender differences, and defending the weak. Hear from scientists, journalists, political protesters, sisters, grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. Girls donning last-minute Halloween costumes, struggling during their first marching band practice, and figuring out how best to hang from the monkey bars. Women triumphing over insecurity, illness, addiction, and loss. Exquisitely written stories of ordinary and extraordinary experiences, from harrowing to hilarious, the pivotal life moments that make us who we are today. "Becoming: What Makes a Woman brings to life those remarkable moments, large and small, that transform an individual, steering us toward the lives we were meant to lead. An astonishing array of gifted writers explore intimacy, doubt, love, joy, and sorrow to form this exhilarating anthology. A rich and wonderful read." Dinty W. Moore, author of The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life "Beautifully conceived and organized, this collection unfolds much the way a woman's life reveals itself: slowly, gently, and sometimes painfully nudging our way into wisdom." Brenda Miller, author of Season of the Body and Listening Against the Stone An excellent guide for young women in their own process of "becoming." A meaningful thank you for the visionary women who have led the way. Edited by Jill McCabe Johnson, and with a forward by Janice Deeds, Ph.D., of the University of Nebraska Gender Programs. The diverse collection includes essays and poems by Ellen Bass, Peggy Shumaker, Lia Purpura, Dinah Lenney, Judith Slater, Marjorie Saiser, Dilruba Ahmed, Julie L. Moore, Maria Terrone, and more.

"Poetry," writes best-selling author Ellen Bass, "is the way I pay attention, appreciate, give praise, struggle, grieve, rage, and pray. It's the way I embody my love for the world."

The Human Line, Bass' seventh book of poems, startles with its precise detail, intimate images, and wild metaphors. Bass brings attention to life's endearing absurdities, and many of the poems flash with a keen sense of humor. She also faces many of the crucial moral dilemmas of our time-genetic engineering, environmental issues, continuous war, heterosexism-and grounds her vision in the small, private workings of the heart.

. . . When I get home, my son has a headache, and though he'salmost grown, asks me to sing him a song.We lie together on the lumpy couchand I warble out the old show tunes, Night and Day . . . They Can't Take That Away from Me . . . A cheapsilver chain shimmers across his throatrising and falling with his pulse. There never wasanything else. Only these excruciatinglyinsignificant creatures we love.

Ellen Bass is co-author of the million-selling book Courage to Heal. She lives and teaches in Santa Cruz, California.