Jennifer Perrine is an associate professor of English and directs the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Drake University. Perrine is the author of In the Human Zoo, recipient of the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize, and The Body Is No Machine, winner of the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry.

“No Confession, No Mass is lyrical, inventive, and full of surprises, offering us fresh ways of seeing old stories. The music is a delight throughout-agile and apt-language enjoying itself! Jennifer Perrine writes: ‘and returned her whole, startled raw, launched her back into the world.’ This is what fine poetry can do-and No Confession, No Mass does it.”-Ellen Bass, author of Like a Beggar

• AcknowledgmentsI.Invocation: [Saint] GenevieveThe Mother, the Girl, the Mirror That SpeaksTo Chant Back the SummerHumility PrideFor the Lone Man at the Violence Prevention CenterEmbarrassment: from baraço (halter)Envy KindnessAfter My Mother's Death, I Feel NothingII.Invocation: [Saint] EuphrosyneA Theory of ViolenceThe Divorcée's FableSong of the BystanderPibloktoA Theory of Violence'Tis of TheeGreed CharityMobilityPatience WrathA Theory of ViolenceIII.Invocation: The Blessed Girl, after Her Visions and VowsSelf-Portrait as Francis BaconLetter to Half a Lifetime AgoLove Song with Condemned BuildingLustCall MeLust ChastityYokeWild Child (Slight Return)I Would Rather Die a Thousand DeathsOde to the MotorcycleDead LetterIV.Invocation: [Saint] PharaïldisPastoral for Our Uncharted TerritoriesFishwifeTemperance GluttonyThe Mystic Speaks of AttachmentConfidence GameWow and FlutterDiligence SlothElegy for My Morbid CuriosityHappiness: from hap (fortune, luck)CoronalSeconds

Jennifer Perrine is an associate professor of English and directs the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Drake University. Perrine is the author of In the Human Zoo, recipient of the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize, and The Body Is No Machine, winner of the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry.

“No Confession, No Mass is lyrical, inventive, and full of surprises, offering us fresh ways of seeing old stories. The music is a delight throughout-agile and apt-language enjoying itself! Jennifer Perrine writes: ‘and returned her whole, startled raw, launched her back into the world.’ This is what fine poetry can do-and No Confession, No Mass does it.”-Ellen Bass, author of Like a Beggar

• AcknowledgmentsI.Invocation: [Saint] GenevieveThe Mother, the Girl, the Mirror That SpeaksTo Chant Back the SummerHumility PrideFor the Lone Man at the Violence Prevention CenterEmbarrassment: from baraço (halter)Envy KindnessAfter My Mother's Death, I Feel NothingII.Invocation: [Saint] EuphrosyneA Theory of ViolenceThe Divorcée's FableSong of the BystanderPibloktoA Theory of Violence'Tis of TheeGreed CharityMobilityPatience WrathA Theory of ViolenceIII.Invocation: The Blessed Girl, after Her Visions and VowsSelf-Portrait as Francis BaconLetter to Half a Lifetime AgoLove Song with Condemned BuildingLustCall MeLust ChastityYokeWild Child (Slight Return)I Would Rather Die a Thousand DeathsOde to the MotorcycleDead LetterIV.Invocation: [Saint] PharaïldisPastoral for Our Uncharted TerritoriesFishwifeTemperance GluttonyThe Mystic Speaks of AttachmentConfidence GameWow and FlutterDiligence SlothElegy for My Morbid CuriosityHappiness: from hap (fortune, luck)CoronalSeconds