God Had a Body: Poems, Paperback

The mind and the body. The heavens and earth. God and animal. The speaker in God had a body considers how the image of a higher power is presented to her, beginning with a Catholic upbringing in Kentucky. Speckled with stars and peopled with creatures, these poems employ a trinity of sequences that address a present, past, and possible future--from a troubled reckoning with belief to loss and promise still ahead.

In this debut collection from Jennie Malboeuf, we observe undercurrents of violence and power, the dynamics of memory, gender, marriage, and miscarriage. At times, God is brutal. At times, delicate. Through true stories of animal savagery, God had a body unravels human behavior and undoes the opaque and cryptic mysteries of faith.

Born and raised in Kentucky, Jennie Malboeuf received a BA at Centre College and an MFA at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her poems have appeared in the Gettysburg Review, VQR, the Southern Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, David, and dog, Mavis. She teaches writing at Guilford College.