• Title: Lost Gospels
• Author: Lorri Neilsen Glenn
• ISBN: 1894078772
• ISBN-13: 9781894078771
• Pages: 112
• Year: 2010
• Size: 6" × 8.75"
• Price: $19.00

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Listen to Poems from Lost Gospels

• Listen to individual poems on AudioBoo
• Listen to a grouping of poems on YouTube

Poems of great loss and deep questioning, wringing beauty out of potential despair.

In the opening poem of Lost Gospels, Lorri Neilsen Glenn writes of Mahalia Jackson and Blind Willie Johnson:

             … they sang, oh yes, they raised light from dark water, dug

diamonds out of the cold, cold ground….

In a sense this is what Neilsen Glenn herself achieves in this deeply moving third book: raising light from dark water. Her new collection confronts the deaths of dear friends and family members, returns to her prairie childhood and youth, and engages hard, hard questions of mortality, and of existence in a world fraught with suffering and violence (both global and domestic). Central is the poetic sequence “A Song for Simone”—a conversation between the poet and French mystical philosopher Simone Weil. Here is poetry reaching out to embrace a manner of being in the world that at once moves beyond the world and engages it fully. Lost Gospels confirms Neilsen Glenn as a poet of maturity, depth and power.

“…The twang of country music, the ripeness of ‘berry, leaf, fruit,’ the fierce clarity of Simone Weil's philosophy—Lorri Neilsen Glenn's poetry exhorts us to ‘Wake every chance you can.’ ‘Carry light,’ she says, and we do, reading her blazing words.” – Anne Simpson

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Lorri Neilsen Glenn in conversation with David Kosub at Speaking of Poems

Ever read a really great poem and want to ask the poet questions about it? This week, I asked Halifax poet Lorri Neilsen Glenn about her poem “You think of Meister Eckhart,” winner of The Malahat Review’s 2010 Open Season Award for Poetry.

Full poem and conversation

Interview with Lorri Neilsen Glenn on Information Morning Nova Scotia - July 8, 2010

Lorri Neilsen Glenn discusses how poetry can help us build a culture of peace and speaks about her participation in the Peace Celebration Dinner at Mount Saint Vincent University at 7 p.m. tonight – other performers are The Elastic Millennium Choir and Dream for Real. 

The Peace Conference is being held from July 7 to 10 at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.  “Being the Change:  Building a Culture of Peace” is its theme.

Listen to the interview with Lorri and a reading of her poem “Wild” from Lost Gospels, a new poetry collection published by Brick Books in February 2010

Poetry’s renaissance – Publishers across country release many verse titles this season 

Halifax Chronicle-Herald – April 18, 2010-05-26 By Stephen Patrick Clare

In the wake of this week’s Atlantic Book Awards, literature lovers across the region have been reminded that some of the country’s – and the world’s – finest authors are today living and working among us.

Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Halifax’s former poet laureate, agrees.  “Poetry is thriving,” she said enroute to Western Canada to promote The Lost Gospels (Brick Books, $19).

Neilsen Glenn who confesses that she “fell into poetry sideways” as a means “to take me places I had never been,” said that the genre has done well to adapt to the changing wants and needs of its audience.

“There are all sorts of new forms and styles; page poets to stage poets; spoken word; slam poetry; poetry performed with other media; poetry online.  People are thirsty for poetry in all of its forms.”

Full Article.  May 18, 2010

Events notice from The Coast - April 1, 2010 by Holly Gordon

Poetry collection launch - Lorri Neilsen Glenn: Lost Gospels 

Halifax's former poet laureate, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, explores ideas of loss and mourning, but in a positive way

The  launch took place on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 

"A poem comes when it damn well feels like it," says poet Lorri Neilsen Glenn, explaining how her work is born. "The muse shows up when she's ready, so it's not a matter of sitting there waiting for a bolt from the blue---it's kind of a slow awakening, really, rather than a bolt." In the case of Neilsen Glenn's new book of poetry, Lost Gospels, the muse appeared in the form of loss, which led to questions as to what to do after mourning, what matters and how to move forward. "I know it sounds grim and depressing, but it isn't," assures Halifax's former poet laureate. Reading the end of her poem, "Wild," shows how Neilsen Glenn shines light through the sorrow: "Oblivion is a wise/ old teacher: there is no try. It's all right. You didn't get it/ until this moment, did you? Wake every chance you can, join/ the chorus, praise the wild. Carry light." Singer-songwriter Rose Vaughan performed some new work along with Neilsen Glenn's readings on Tuesday. –Holly Gordon