Announcing a new book...

Spare Parts - A Novella in Verse “ Wild with the guises of love, of everything human: it’s laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and absolutely believable. All this in verse that sings.” —Renée Ashley “ There can’t be many works of literature that bring together St. Francis and Dale Earnhardt but in this verse novella Anne Harding Woodworth has created an emotional and physical landscape capacious enough for both eminences. ” – Baron Wormsr “ . . . a tour de force of syllabic verse, as well as a suspenseful narrative. You won’t put it down until you’ve read to the end. ” —Jane Gentry “. . . unusual and engaging odyssey of modern male friendship, far-flung religious epiphany, and outlander NASCAR sculptural tribute. Had anyone prepped me for the experience [of reading Spare Parts] by trying to explain how such wildly disparate elements might possibly fit together, I'd have wondered about their sanity.” —Pamela Harrison, author of STEREOPTICON and OKIE CHRONICLES (David Robert Books)   Available now from Amazon!   Or Buy from Barnes & Noble

3 In which Paul remembers his Ford Galaxie        

When I was a kid, nothing was truer
than my 1960 Galaxie, sleek
sled, maroon and chrome, with leather-covered

power seats. Equipped with power steering,
it had Cruise-O-Matic, spotlight mirror,
automotive parts a guy would die for.

Galaxie Starliner hardtop two-door—
it took me and countless other guys from
carhop to drive-in movies, its long, low

oil pan, one of many secrets under
its hood, this V-eight that came my way through
no effort of my own, but rather when

an uncle “bought the farm,” as I would put
it in those days of callous disregard
for the fragility of breath. He chose

me as his next of kin, no lover, wife
to whom he might have bequeathed his estate
consisting of a car and pair of shoes.

With my friend Gaddis I drove the mountains
in search of girls, races, cigarettes, booze,
deserted roads for drag strips by the moon.

This car, this set of wheels that carried me
into ecstasy I’d not known before,
was my religion, my identity.

4 In which Gaddis begins to explain himself                                                                                       (audio)

My name is Andrew Gaddis Tish.
They call me Gaddis, my mother’s
maiden name. She died giving birth
to me. Her rich dad made dead sure

they’d call me Gaddis, which became
Gladys by third grade, but I was
never bothered, kind of fancied
it—in secret in the attic

where I’d go to be alone, where
one day—I was eight or nine—I
opened up a trunk where I found
face down my mama’s wedding gown.

I pulled the zipper slowly down
the back, gently took the shoulders
and held them up against myself.
Every attic’s mirror awaits

that one stalwart occasion when
it proves it still can do its job.
And sure enough our smudged and dusty
glass showed me a bride to love.

I slipped the dress over my head
and zipped it up, a dress too big
but smooth as skin. I later learned
to call it peau de soie, an apt

name for the off-white silky gown
I wore that day. I also found
my mother’s shoes, size 8, high heels.
I slid my feet, size 1, within.

And then the veil. My hair was much
too trim to hold the tortoise combs,
but I laid the tulle on my head,
brownish tulle that flowed to my shins.

There I stood before the mirror,
smiling at my loveliness when—
“Gaddis?” My dad was coming up.
“Are you up here? I’ve been calling,

son, are you up . . . ” he stopped at
the top of the stairs, staring at me.
I looked at him, no word sounded.
Then my father picked me up, put

his head against my neck. I felt
his tears descending into
the scoop neck of the dress. Quietly,
he carried me downstairs to his

reading chair, and there began to
read to me “The Cremation of
Sam McGee,” which I learned by heart.
And ever since, I’ve linked to it

the day my father let go of
the woman of his life and took
me into his universe, me,
his first and lonely son in search

of him, a father and a man.

12 Lacey's research notes for her novel                                                                                        (audio)

Short-stemmed cotton grows many months in Copaïs
Valley, once a lake, then plain. To drain, Mycenean
engineers figured how—but filled again. Water
can’t be tamed—marshes grow back like bamboo and cane.
Now beautiful plain again, has been since ’20s.
Cotton as in Tennessee grows Greek soft thorny
plenty—Turkish trade—Cybele’s wildness begins
on Mt. Ida. Too close she sits to errant seeds
of Zeus—the cad. He bandies sperm about and laughs
when she conceives, but people and gods see her as
mom. Soon she births not fish nor fowl called Agdistis.
Hermaphrodite, w his vagina, her penis,
anomalies catch eye and ear of deities
on mountaintop—cliffs & caves & pools, & wine runs
like salmon. Drunken frenzies churn waters that mix
w alcohol—till one day he/she, Agdistis,
falls asleep. Jokester gods tie his/her prick to tree,
& so when Agdistis shifts, he becomes all she.
Where the member lands, an almond tree—called “crazy”
for flowering in winter mindless of the chill—
grows up recklessly in true family
tradition. So when maiden daughter of river
god—Nana—sits beneath it, the almond locates
just the place to hide: her reddish cave—& throbbing,
too. Out slips boy Attis in nine months’ time. His looks
could kill—falls in love w Agdistis, who by now
passes for Cybele & all is mixed up in
pots of seeds & nuts & gods & sons & mothers,
daughters granddaughters grandsons & goddesses &
Greeks & Turks & Romans & those whosoever
at future times will need cotton gowns to wear in
temples and in market places. So interwove
the threads of Copaïs and Tennessee, other
places west and east, & mother to all creatures.
N.B. All creatures inside all creatures.
Each the other. Male/female, tree/squirrel, friend/stranger.

ENJOY MORE in Public Poetry: Book of the Day

Anne's Links

Blog Mentions