Whether exploring the porous borders between sin and virtue or examining the lives of saints and mystics to find the human experiences in stories of the divine, the poems in No Confession, No Mass move toward restoration and reunion.
Jennifer Perrine’s poems ask what healing might be possible in the face of sexual and gendered violence worldwide—in New Delhi, in Steubenville, in Juárez, and in neighborhoods and homes never named in the news. The book reflects on our own complicity in violence, “not confessing, but unearthing” former selves who were brutal and brutalized—and treating them with compassion. As the poems work through these seeming paradoxes, they also find joy, celebrating transformations and second chances, whether after the failure of a marriage, the return of a reluctant soldier from war, or the everyday passage of time.
Through the play of language in received forms—abecedarian, sonnet, ballad, ghazal, villanelle, ballade—and in free verse buzzing with assonance, alliteration, and rhyme, these poems sing their resistance to violence in all its forms.
**
Review
“ 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
(Ellen Bass 2015-03-04)
About the Author
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.

motw/No Confession, No Mass - Jennifer Perrine.pdf

Perrine.indd

Poems

Perrine, Jennifer;

alage2

UNP - Nebraska

Bison Books

Prairie schooner book prize in poetry, Lincoln, 2015

United States, United States of America

FR, 2015

producers:
Acrobat Distiller 10.1.3 (Windows)

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Winner of the 2016 Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Award
Winner of the 2015 Bisexual Book Award for Poetry
Winner of the 2014 Prairie Schooner Book Prize 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 throughoutagile and aptlanguage enjoying itself! Jennifer Perrine writes: and returned her whole, startled raw, launched her back into the world. This is what fine poetry can doand No Confession, No Mass does it.Ellen Bass, author of Like a Beggar
Whether exploring the porous borders between sin and virtue or examining the lives of saints and mystics to find the human experiences in stories of the divine, the poems in No Confession, No Mass move toward restoration and reunion.
Jennifer Perrines poems ask what healing might be possible in the face of sexual and gendered violence worldwidein New Delhi, in Steubenville, in Jurez, and in neighborhoods and homes never named in the news. The book reflects on our own complicity in violence, not confessing, but unearthing former selves who were brutal and brutalizedand treating them with compassion. As the poems work through these seeming paradoxes, they also find joy, celebrating transformations and second chances, whether after the failure of a marriage, the return of a reluctant soldier from war, or the everyday passage of time.
Through the play of language in received formsabecedarian, sonnet, ballad, ghazal, villanelle, balladeand in free verse buzzing with assonance, alliteration, and rhyme, these poems sing their resistance to violence in all its forms.

Cover
1
Title Page
4
Copyright Page
5
Contents
6
Acknowledgments 8
I 12
Invocation: [Saint] Genevieve 14
The Mother, the Girl, the Mirror That Speaks 16
To Chant Back the Summer 17
Humility | Pride 19
For the Lone Man at the Violence Prevention Center 20
Embarrassment: from baraço (halter) 22
Envy | Kindness 23
After My Mother’s Death, I Feel Nothing 25
II 28
Invocation: [Saint] Euphrosyne 30
A Theory of Violence 32
The Divorcée’s Fable 33
Song of the Bystander 35
Piblokto 36
A Theory of Violence 37
’Tis of Thee 38
Greed | Charity 39
Mobility 40
Patience | Wrath 41
A Theory of Violence 42
III 43
Invocation: The Blessed Girl, after Her Visions and Vows 46
Self- Portrait as Francis Bacon 48
Letter to Half a Lifetime Ago 49
Love Song with Condemned Building 51
Lust 52
Call Me 53
Lust | Chastity 54
Yoke 56
Wild Child (Slight Return) 58
I Would Rather Die a Thousand Deaths 60
Ode to the Motorcycle 61
Dead Letter 63
IV 64
Pastoral for Our Uncharted Territories 68
Fishwife 70
Temperance | Gluttony 71
The Mystic Speaks of Attachment 73
Confidence Game 74
Wow and Flutter 76
Diligence | Sloth 77
Elegy for My Morbid Curiosity 78
Happiness: from hap (fortune, luck) 79
Coronal 80
Seconds 81

2025-10-27