{"title":"Books by Ellen Bass","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780091884208","title":"The Courage to Heal","description":"\u003cp\u003eBased on the experiences of hundreds of child abuse survivors, The Courage to Heal profiles victims who share the challenges and triumphs of their personal healing processes. Inspiring and comprehensive, it offers mental, emotional and physical support to all people who are in the process of rebuilding their lives. The Courage to Heal offers hope, encouragement and practical advice to every woman who was sexually abused as a child and answers some vital questions, including:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e-How do I know if I was sexually abused?\u003cbr\u003e-Where does the decision to heal start?\u003cbr\u003e-How can I break the silence and who will listen?\u003cbr\u003e-How can I re-build my self-esteem, intimacy and capacity to love?\u003cbr\u003e-What therapy, support groups, self-help programmes or organisations are available?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43399318405298,"sku":"9780091884208","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780091884208_be07df11-bf4e-442e-a175-34b1892922ff.jpg?v=1786011526"},{"product_id":"9781556594649","title":"Like a Beggar","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePaterson Poetry Prize Finalist, 2015\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFeatured on NPR's \u003ci\u003eThe Writer's Almanac\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Ellen Bass's new poetry collection, \u003ci\u003eLike a Beggar\u003c\/i\u003e, pulses with sex, humor and compassion.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Bass tries to convey everyday wonder on contemporary experiences of sex, work, aging, and war. Those who turn to poetry to become confidants for another's stories and secrets will not be disappointed.\"—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In her fifth book of poetry, Bass addresses everything from Saturn's rings and Newton's law of gravitation to wasps and Pablo Neruda. Her words are nostalgic, vivid, and visceral. Bass arrives at the truth of human carnality rooted in the extraordinary need and promise of the individual. Bass shows us that we are as radiant as we are ephemeral, that in transience glistens resilient history and the remarkable fluidity of connection. By the collection's end—following her musings on suicide and generosity, desire and repetition—it becomes lucidly clear that Bass is not only a poet but also a philosopher and a storyteller.\"—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEllen Bass brings a deft touch as she continues her ongoing interrogations of crucial moral issues of our times, while simultaneously delighting in endearing human absurdities. From the start of Like a Beggar, Bass asks her readers to relax, even though \"bad things are going to happen,\" because the \"bad\" gets mined for all manner of goodness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \"Another Story\":\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter dinner, we're drinking scotch at the kitchen table.\u003cbr\u003eJanet and I just watched a NOVA special\u003cbr\u003eand we're explaining to her mother\u003cbr\u003ethe age and size of the universe—\u003cbr\u003ethe hundred billion stars in the hundred billion galaxies.\u003cbr\u003eDotty lives at Dominican Oaks, making her way down the long hall.\u003cbr\u003eHow about the sun? she asks, a little farmshit in the endlessness.\u003cbr\u003eI gather up a cantaloupe, a lime, a cherry,\u003cbr\u003eand start revolving this salad around the chicken carcass.\u003cbr\u003eThis is the best scotch I ever tasted, Dotty says,\u003cbr\u003eeven though we gave her the Maker's Mark\u003cbr\u003ewhile we're drinking Glendronach...\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEllen Bass\u003c\/b\u003e's poetry includes \u003ci\u003e Like A Beggar \u003c\/i\u003e(Copper Canyon Press, 2014), \u003ci\u003eThe Human Line \u003c\/i\u003e (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), which was named a Notable Book by the \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMules of Love\u003c\/i\u003e (BOA, 2002), which won the Lambda Literary Award.  She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the groundbreaking \u003ci\u003eNo More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women \u003c\/i\u003e(Doubleday, 1973). Her work has frequently been published in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The New Republic, The Sun \u003c\/i\u003e and many other journals. She is co-author of several non-fiction books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse \u003c\/i\u003e(HarperCollins, 1988, 2008) which has sold over a million copies and been translated into twelve languages. She is part of the core faculty of the MFA writing program at Pacific University.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303987687797,"sku":"9781556594649","price":19.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781556594649_ed6f92fc-e442-4965-bba5-d553c98d6db9.jpg?v=1786023657"},{"product_id":"9781556595752","title":"Indigo","description":"\"Bass’s work—about marriage and parenting, illness and recovery, small daily pleasures—cultivates an exuberance that’s born of, and balanced by, close watchfulness.\" —\u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A bold and passionate new collection… Intimacy is rarely conveyed as gracefully as in Bass’s lustrous poems.” —Booklist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eIndigo\u003c\/em\u003e, the newest collection by Ellen Bass, merges elegy and praise poem in an exploration of life’s complexities. Whether her subject is oysters, high heels, a pork chop, a beloved dog, or a wife’s return to health, Bass pulls us in with exquisite immediacy. Her lush and precisely observed descriptions allow us to feel the sheer primal pleasure of being alive in our own “succulent skin,” the pleasure of the gifts of hunger, desire, touch. In this book, joy meets regret, devotion meets dependence, and most importantly, the poet so in love with life and living begins to look for the point where the price of aging overwhelms the rewards of staying alive. Bass is relentless in her advocacy for the little pleasures all around her. Her gaze is both expansive and hyperfocused, celebrating (and eulogizing) each gift as it is given and taken, while also taking stock of the larger arc. She draws the lines between generations, both remembering her parents’ lives and deaths and watching her own children grow into the space that she will leave behind. \u003cem\u003eIndigo\u003c\/em\u003e shows us the beauty of this cycle, while also documenting the deeply human urge to resist change and hang on to the life we have, even as it attempts to slip away.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303987884405,"sku":"9781556595752","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781556595752_222900d5-c253-476c-a791-49e8990c1e96.jpg?v=1786023664"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-ellen-bass.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}