Poetry. Penelope Duckworth's first full collection of poetry, A COMMON GLORY, travels the outer landscape of the natural world exploring her roots in the farmland of southern Ohio; family place as she moved west and traveled abroad; and sacred space as she explored her spiritual heritage through study and priesthood in the Episcopal Church. Her poems also chronicle the inner landscape of grief for the deaths of her sister and father; of women's lives as she probes the stories of women in scripture, as well as touching her own occasions for joy, outrage, forgiveness, and gratitude. Working both in traditional forms and free verse, this accessible collection is a strong companion to her other writings.

"Carrying the sound of plain chant and wearing the scent of the sea, Penelope Duckworth's generous, deeply-felt poems record, witness, and celebrate each image, thought, and story they so richly bring forward and keep."
—Jane Hirshfield

"Penelope Duckworth's A COMMON GLORY is by turns lyrical, elegiac, and narrative. But no matter the form, each poem deftly considers our inherited world with gratitude and reverence, displaying the religious visionary's urge to humbly praise all that God has made."
—Ron Hansen

Author City: SAN JOSE, CA USA

Penelope Duckworth's poems have appeared in The American Scholar, Yankee, The Christian Century, Poetry Northwest, Theology Today and other journals and she has won prizes for her poetry from West Wind Review and Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, California. She is an Episcopal priest and serves as Artist-in-Residence at Trinity Cathedral in San Jose, CA. She is currently teaching in the Department of Theater and Dance at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA. She is the author of three other books in the field of religion, as well as an award-winning play on the Rehabilitation trial of Joan of Arc. Poet Mary Oliver wrote of her second book, Mary: The Imagination of Her Heart (Cowley Publications, 2004): "Penelope Duckworth's many-faceted meditation on Mary, the mother of Jesus, gave me, as even the few sentences in the New Testament could not, an understanding of Mary's influences throughout history, and even more important, perhaps, a vibrant tenderness for her experience, for her life. The text is fascinating, careful and yet lyrical. This book is pure gift."