Wilderness

By Anna K. Ivey

Wilderness is a collection of poems chronicling a family's transition from conflict into peace. The structure is free-verse poetry. Written in various points of view, the work uses quotes from The Pilgrim's Progress for names of poems, epigraphs, and section titles.
Wilderness has two major parts. The first section deals with the rising dysfunction before the family gives their wounds to God. Marriage stress, mental illness, an absent father, and troubled childhoods create deep complications in this blended family. The central character is the wife/mother, who attempts to manage herself and her home.
The second half is marked by these characters undergoing the messy transition into health and spiritual healing. Delving into the inner workings of an American family, Wilderness seeks to excavate a damaged past for the purpose of embracing restoration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Apr 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532678851

Anna K. Ivey

Anna K. Ivey holds a PhD in Poetry from Georgia State University. She teaches high school English at Eagle’s Landing Christian Academy, where she also serves as the student support director. This is her second book of poetry. Her first, into the leftover blue, was published in 2016.

Book preview

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Wilderness 

Anna K. Ivey

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Wilderness

Copyright © 2019 Anna K. Ivey. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-7883-7

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-7884-4

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-7885-1

Manufactured in the U.S.A. May 17, 2019

For Aralyn, my song. For Cade, my lion.

In this my Scribble; nor did I intend But to divert myself in doing this From worser thoughts which make me do amiss. 

The Author’s Apology for His Book from The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan 

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Borderlands

1.

Barricades

Advocate

Date day

Ambassador

House cat

Fit the bill

Learning curve

Acts of service and words of affirmation

Not on board

Sons

Snow in Henry County, Georgia

Crux

2.

General Anxiety Disorder

Fog

Refurbishing

Art in the house

Anniversary gift

Clearing small trees in winter in the backyard

Changed behavior

In common

Braids

El Hombre de La Mancha

Self-medicating

Harvest

Creative

Shalom

Acknowledgments

This project would never have come into fruition without the dedicated guidance of Dr. Beth Gylys. The inklings of this manuscript began with her generative workshop in the summer of 2016. The frantic pace of daily poetry production meant I would mine the rich ground of my own sins to keep crafting poems. Without her encouragement to keep delving into what