News at Eleven: Several of the poems recount the effects

of Mercy [Dudley Woodbridge]'s questioning of Puritan dogma. The most emotionally wrenching of these is "Divorce, Disinheritance, Excommunication." In it she says, "My/father stayed in the room when they voted,/as did my husband. I did not expect that." Later she recalls, "When they excommunicated me, I went into the forest/where God waits for me" ("The Gift of Prophecy.")

The major journey Mercy undertakes is undeniably a spiritual one. And in poem after poem, the spiritual plight of the 17th-century woman surfaces, as in "How God Comes to Me":

from Bowling Green Daily News: Book review: Oakes' poetry uses plain but powerful language

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