CYNTHIA ATKINS

SAINT JULIAN PRESS POET

 
Cynthia Atkins is the author of Psyche’s Weathers and In The Event Of Full Disclosure.  Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Apogee, BOMB, Cleaver Magazine, Cortland Review, Cultural Weekly, Diode, Florida Review, Green Mountains Review, North American Review, Seneca Review, Tampa Review, Tinderbox, Thrush, Valparaiso Review, and Verse Daily.  Formerly the assistant director for the Poetry Society of America, she has taught English and Creative Writing, most recently at Blue Ridge Community College, where she curated a quarterly Reading Series.  Atkins is an Interviews Editor at American Microreviews and Interviews.  She earned her MFA from Columbia University, and fellowships and prizes from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Writer’s Voice, and Writers@Work, with several nominations from The Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes.  More work and info at:  www.cynthiaatkins.com.
 

STILL–LIFE WITH GOD

Cover Art: Perseverance
By Lisa Telling Kattenbraker
​Author Photo: Anne Valerie Portrait
With a voice grappling with questions about faith and living, Cynthia Atkins’ — Still-Life With God excavates and studies the spiritual life in a culture of hardcore consumerism and social media frenzy. These poems are not ‘religious’ in scope, but in fact, attempt to take God back from religion. Almost prayer-like, they become a rubric for faith with all its threats and losses, through the spiritual, mental, and physical lens at odds with a material world. A bold cautionary tale of the plight of the self to question our destiny and our place in the world. The poet addresses questions of gender, body, mental health/illness, gun violence and mental health. With a wide psychological net and narrative depth, the poet looks at coming of age, adulthood, motherhood, womanhood, selfhood—She is a feminist, a Yankee, a Jew living in Southern Appalachia. Even though there is danger at every turn, there is also a reverence for the ‘exquisite human machine.’ With images that grab hold, this lyrical sequence of poems addresses the modem hypertext madness of our world. Yes, there is pain and ache at every turn, but these poems are fiercely resolute that facing the demons is what allows us to derail them. This is an impactful and sublime collection, rendering a quest for selfhood, love, contemplation and the divine in a world of human flux and devastation.