$15.95

ISBN 978-0-9913870-2-1

7 x 8", perfect-bound paperback, with full color cover and black & white interior art.

74 pages

Sugartown Publishing

Book cover and interior design by Margaret Copeland, terragrafix.com

Front cover art by Sian MacQueen, Argyll, Scotland: "Waiting to Sail: Garvellachs."

Back cover photo of Judy Wells, taken by Diane Rusnak, standing before the photographer's painting entitled "Relaxed Swimmer."

The Glass Ship was inspired by my study of Irish medieval immrama, or tales of voyage to other-world islands, particularly “The Voyage of Maeldúin.” As these sea voyages were generally undertaken my men, I conceived the idea of a woman, voyaging alone in a small boat, discovering her own set of fantastic islands, as did Maeldúin with his companions.

In my poems, I borrowed images from Irish mythology, particularly shape-shifting, but of course these transformations occur in other influences, The Odyssey and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. And because I am a contemporary woman writer, I also constructed my own imaginative world.   

My prose-poem series began to take on the shape of a mini-novel with a mother/daughter theme in contrast to Maeldúin’s voyage and even Joyce’s Ulysses, which both have father/son themes.

I did not actively plan this approach; my series took on its own life as I wrote it. Such is the writer’s voyage.   



THE GLASS SHIP

I saw it far out on the horizon, a blinding light. As it came closer, I realized it was a magnificent sailing ship made completely of glass—glass sails, mast, hull—a dazzling spectacle in the sun. At times, the glass ship reflected rainbow lights like a crystal. I had heard stories of this legendary ship, though no one I knew had ever seen it, but here it was, bearing down on me in my small boat.

I looked up at the now-looming ship and spotted a young man and woman on the deck, dressed completely in white. They were dancing, whirling slowly, waltzing, to be exact.  I saw one face, then another, and was astonished to recognize my own parents.  A longing arose in me, and I called out to them.  They stopped and looked down at me curiously, my father with his slicked-back hair, my mother with her black curly bob, and did not seem to recognize their daughter.  They resumed their positions, waltzing around the glass deck, a whirl of white, transfixed only by each other.

Gradually, I realized why they did not recognize me.  I had not yet been born. Here were my parents deeply in love before they were married, before the four children began to come, before the toil of creating a home.

The glass ship sailed off with my dancing parents. Its wake caused a slight rocking of my small skin boat before I was left alone on the still sea.

RED SEA, RED ISLAND

It was not wine-dark, nor scarlet, but rather a watery pale red—the sea I sailed to

 Red Island. When I stepped ashore, I thought I had to be ready for combat.

I was wrong. All I found was an island of elegant red Irish Setters who lapped my hand with their pink tongues, scarlet cardinals with punk hairdos and black eyes, and seas of swarming red ants. Curiously the ants did not sting me. Instead, they were intent on building large towers out of red sand. They did not seem to live in them. I discerned these red ants were artists, building for aesthetic pleasure.

As I wandered further inland, followed by the great pack of red Irish Setters, I came upon a huge stand of red roses.  They seemed to be crying, exuding red dew from their exquisite petals.  I bent towards one large rose and thought I heard a voice say, We were once human, all of us. Now we are flowers. We die in a day. If you want to save yourself from our fate, race toward the apple tree and eat.

I wildly looked around and saw a small compact tree just outside the huge stand of roses. I picked the shiniest red apple from its heaviest bough and sunk my teeth into its flesh. I felt a tingling rush all over my body and glanced at my bare forearm. Silky red hairs were pushing from my flesh, everywhere. I raced toward my boat and watched the pack of Irish Setters howling on the shore as red retreating waves carried my boat out to sea.



THE WHITE ARCHIPELAGO

I'm surrounded by a white archipelago -- a hundred thousand white islands surrounded by a white sea. The islands are constantly breaking up, and on each one, invisible chalk-white people are losing their relatives to other islands. You can hear their shrieks when lovers are separated and parents are separated from their small white children. Sometimes you hear a sigh of relief when a mom loses her difficult teen, and the son cackles with glee, but he's soon calling from a distant island for a white bread sandwich with vegan mayonnaise. She's the only white mom among the hundred thousands who can make his sandwich just right. One day the white islands may grow green trees, but for now, all is white, a pure white universe.





"Every prosepoem in Judy Wells’ The Glass Ship is a note played on an Irish harp.

Together they make up a music of childlike wonder and amazement: a Book of Spells. . . 

What surprises are in store as this Irish Alice sinbads her way through Poetryland."

Jack Foley, author of Visions & Affiliations: A California Literary Timeline

"The Glass Ship is an enchantment, a delight from beginning to end, funny and surprising, revealing an imagination long nurtured by myth, legend, fantasy, and fable as well as great skill in poetic and narrative expression.

These tales seem familiar yet we find ourselves in unexplored territory time and again, and this reader is very happy to be on the journey. 

I highly recommend this book!"

Jeanne Lupton, Poet, Writer, Host of Frank Bette Center for the Arts Poetry Series  

"The Glass Ship by Berkeley poet Judy Wells is a creative work of a woman’s island  journeys to satisfy her curiosity and sense of exploration. 

Set among Irish legends of the author’s background and mythological women, her traveler is irreverent as she meets island inhabitants in her small skin boat: her 17 daughters who were brought to life by her words, the red island of Irish setters wanting to turn her into a dog–“silky red hairs were pushing from my flesh”—sheep changing color which hold the secret to immortality.

Lush language, imaginative shape-shifting make this volume a fun, worthwhile read."

Janell Moon, author of  Stirring the Waters: Writing to Find Your Spirit and The Blue Studebaker, poems, along with nine other books of spirituality and poetry