Poetry. Judy Wells' sixth poetry collection, EVERYTHING IRISH, is a "family memoir in verse...at once a poignant poetic documentary of Irish-Catholic girlhood and a rollicking riot of laughs"--Bridget Connelly. "EVERYTHING IRISH says it all for me. She captures the times all of 'Our Girls' were haunted by a wayward Holy Ghost, a perfect Holy Mary, a thundering Holy Father. She inspires me to remember the times Saint Anthony found everything for me (and still does), and PleaseGod got me out of a fix (and still does). I know exactly what she means when she says, 'and your lips get purser and purser/ and kapowie and kapowie inside...' because she means exactly, precisely, excruciatingly, that a Catholic Girlhood will never leave you even if you try to say goodbye"--Mary Norbert Korte.

Author Hometown: BERKELEY, CA USA



About the author: Judy Wells was born in San Francisco and raised in Martinez, California. She received her B.A. from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to CALL HOME (Scarlet Tanager, 2005) and EVERYTHING IRISH (Scarlet Tanager, 1999), she has five books of poetry to her credit: I Have Berkeley; Albuquerque Winter; Jane, Jane; The Part-Time Teacher; and The Calling: Twentieth Century Women Artists. Judy is also co-editor, with Marsha Hudson, Bridget Connelly, Doris Earnshaw, and Olivia Eielson, of The Berkeley Literary Women's Revolution: Essays from Marsha's Salon (McFarland, 2005).