Adams, Barbara

Hapax Legomena

1990 0-88946-849-4
Hapax legomena: words or forms that occur only once in the writings of a given language; such words are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to translate.

Ordinary Living

2004 0-7734-3543-3
These poems were written over a ten-year period, and tell the story of a woman’s life following the death of her husband. The strangeness of being a widow and living alone after a long marriage leads to an emotional roller-coaster. Her husband continues to be present in her inner life, haunting her with guilt and deeds that cannot be undone. Writing about him, and about her mother, father and aunt helps exorcise their ghosts. The woman rediscovers sex and desire in lovers. Yet, a feeling of displacement and alienation continues to follow her to Mexico and to New York City where she worked and where she had been born. Finally, a sense of renewal and reconciliation comes to her in art, dream and myth.