Primitive Prayer by Nancy Byrne Iannucci
Poems on life out-of-doors and, sometimes, in. Staple-bound chapbook. 28 pages.
There is nothing primitive about Nancy Byrne Iannucci’s use of language. Her words never overly abstract but wrapped with just the right amount of knowledge and kindness that one feels one is going on a pilgrimage rather than just a journey. In her opening poem Taking Back Eden, where she literally strips away any platitudes and concerns and leaves one serene with solitude and a sense of adventure.
When she says “I’m going to strip and breathe” you can readily feel the offending garments disappear. Her poems are full of self-knowledge as well as her understanding of humanity. I could drink her words every day.
- Larry Jaffe, Beat Poet Laureate Florida
Nancy Byrne Iannucci’s Primitive Prayer begins with a promise: “I’m going to release Eve./ I’m going to take back Eden.” These poems explore sacred paradise full of loss—through reflections on ancestry, death and rebirth cycles in nature, the wintering of the Earth, and the whip of grief. In this collection, the divine promise and the wreckage of Eden are both made beautiful, a constant interplay of light and dark, prayer and witchcraft: “The cosmos and zinnias look up at me/half smiling with fractured backs.” This collection stares unflinchingly into crevices of cold darkness, but cycles back to the reminder of grace’s miraculous and gentle thaw, as “The late afternoon sun/runs its fingers through/a crowd of cattails.”
-Anne Champion, author of The Good Girl is Always a Ghost and She Saints and Holy Profanities
Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a widely published poet from Long Island, New York who currently lives in Troy, NY. Defenestration, Hobo Camp Review, Bending Genres, The Mantle, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Bluebird Word, Glass: a Poetry Journal are some of the places you will find her. She is the author of two chapbooks, Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), and Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021); she is also a teacher, and woodland roamer. Visit her at www.nancybyrneiannucci.com Instagram: @nancybyrneiannucci