Brimming over with the inspirational words and thoughts of some of our finest writers, Cries of the Spirit is a beautiful sourcebook of poetry and prose in praise of life and all that it entails. Here women's voices fill the age-old silence about matters central to their experience-from menstruation, sexual intimacy, and childbirth to caretaking, household rituals, and death. These writings represent a healing vision of the sacred that emerges from the particular consciousness of women-a vision that partakes of the world of earth and flesh.

"Marilyn Sewell has done us all a great service to gather together these voices, some new, some forgotten, all precious resources. The collection, together with Sewell's deeply insightful introduction, traces the spirit in all its dimensions and diversity, expanding our idea of the spiritual impulse."
-Susan Griffin, author of Bending Home

With contributions by Maya Angelou, Julia Alvarez, Margaret Atwood, Hildegard of Bingen, Lucille Clifton, Annie Dillard, Joy Harjo, Erica Jong, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Kathleen Norris, Marge Piercy, Starhawk, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, and others.

Marilyn Sewell is senior minister of the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon, and editor of Claiming the Spirit Within: A Sourcebook of Women's Poetry. She lives in Portland.