""Lucy / your secret book / that you leaned over and wrote just in the dirt - / Not having to have an ending / Not having to last"... and so begins Jean Valentine's provocative new work, Lucy, a poem that pays homage to the three-million-year-old skeleton of the earliest known hominid. Through the juxtaposing of objects, people, and events - from a postage stamp to Newton, from Chekhov to Iraq - this poem, with a deep sense of gratitude and profound longing, celebrates the creative power of the female by introducing us to our oldest human ancestor. In a dreamlike and often fractured syntax that is vintage Valentine, Lucy, the "wildgood mother" of our species, can once again be heard; not because Valentine has given her a voice, but rather this wise and generous poet has taught us the art of listening"--BOOK JACKET.

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