A radically innovative blend of poems, prosepoems, and memoir.
Voices of Women Singing is about women singing from Paris to Guadeloupe, New York to New Orleans; from the 1950s to the present. It’s about love and song, suffering and loss, tragedy and joy, betrayal and atonement. And it’s funny, too.
“Voices of Women Singing is a funny, tragic, wonderful book … Stoneback writes always with good humor and great passion—about Paris, about love, about grief and joy, about the gains and losses of more than half a century gone.” — Alex Andriesse Shakespeare, writer, Boston College
“A virtuosic synthesis of disparate forms and haunting formulations, Voices of Women Singing is ‘life-writing’ of a wholly new and overwhelming kind, ‘written’ in the fullest sense and born of a life lived with passionate intensity.” — William Bedford Clark, poet-critic, Texas A&M University
“H. R. Stoneback’s Voices of Women Singing … [is] an epic account of roots and sources, and it’s close to the bone, intimate beyond words, stirring. Love is at the center of this book: romantic love, love of music, and love as a driving (and saving) force.” — William Boyle, writer, University of Mississippi
“There are only a few voices I can listen to and feel the way I ought to feel in church. H. R. Stoneback’s Voices of Women Singing captures some of those voices … These are sacred songs; these are eternal poems. Listen slowly with infinite love and compassion.” — Matthew Nickel, poet-editor, University of Louisiana
H. R. Stoneback, Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York, is the author or editor of twenty-six books (half poetry, half literary criticism) and hundreds of essays on American literature. He is a leading Hemingway scholar of international reputation, and his recent books Reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Risesand Hemingway’s Paris: Our Paris? have been nominated for numerous awards and received widespread praise. His poetry also has been widely published and received numerous awards.
