Stained with the Colours of Sunday Morning

Rayanne Haines

• Publisher: Inanna Poetry and Fiction Series
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781771335263
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Women in Poetry
• Index: Literature

Isabella Caro, born in Florence at the de-occupation of Italy in WW2 is a woman shaped by the resilience of her country and a thirst for knowledge.

In this fictional Novel-in-Verse we take a journey through one woman's life, told from the perspective of three characters: Isabella, her daughter Alina and her granddaughter Georgia. Three voices weave through a lifetime in and out of harmony as they tell us a story of innocence, feminism, intellect, motherhood, immigration, understanding and loss. Ancient mythology is weaved through the poems and the character's voices ring with the echoes of the maiden, the mother and the crone.

This is the story of a feminist and scholar and the story of mothers and daughters that takes us from 1944 Italy to the the Prairies in 2014. We meet Isabella as a child and follow her story as she marries, suffers from postpartum depression, immigrates to Canada, struggles to connect with her teen daughter, takes on the care of her grandchild and finds peace in old love. In poems both blunt and confessional a woman's story is revealed, page by page.

This debut collection by Rayanne Haines is a creative threading of perspectives and memories about the fictional life of Isabella Caro, by three women who are fictional and yet remarkably real.

Contents

I. Eravamo ragazze italiane, Unbound, 1944-1974

How to tell heart stories – Georgia

Footsteps – Isabella

Wings – Isabella

The Art of Growing Up Italian – Isabella

Brushstrokes – Isabella

Spices – Isabella

Questions Run Like Rivers – Isabella

The Innocent – Isabella

Swimming with Mermaids – Isabella

This Is How We Began – Isabella

The Canals of Venice – Isabella

A Wedding Vow – Isabella

There Was No Name for it Back Then – Isabella

An Emptiness – Isabella

My Husband 1– Isabella

My Husband 2 – Isabella

My Husband 3 – Isabella

Saying Goodbye to my Country – Isabella

II. Cercando di far ombra ai fantasmi in una casa di luce,

1974-1988

not gently to love – Alina

for a walk that was not mine – Alina

When Winter Came – Isabella

Broken Cold – Isabella

When Spring Came – Isabella

Immigrant – Isabella

Only One – Isabella

in Canada my mother flourished – Alina

Moon Lullabies – Isabella

she should have known better – ...