Persimmon Tree had been in existence for only two years then, but its mission was already clearly established: quoting Nan again, Persimmon Tree was to be “a place where our voices would be honored and heard, and although it would have high standards, any older woman could submit her work and be seriously considered whatever her publishing background. Most of all, its existence would be saying to the world: Yes, yes, we too exist, Look at our talent and imagination!”
For Marcia, ArtsMart would be yet another means to accomplish Persimmon Tree’s mission of giving talented older women visibility and voice, another medium through which older women writers and artists could disseminate their work:
ArtsMart continues that tradition today. It exists, first and foremost, as a service to the Persimmon Tree community. It serves Persimmon Tree’s contributors, the women whose writing and art is published in the magazine, by giving them a very reasonably priced platform for marketing their work. It serves Persimmon Tree’s readers by giving them access to books and artwork produced by women whose strength and acumen and experience grant them perspectives and a depth of vision available nowhere else.
It was Marcia’s hope, and it is that of the current editors as well, that you will spend some time browsing ArtsMart, even better that you will make most of your book purchases through ArtsMart. Not only because, in doing so, you support Persimmon Tree and its community of older women writers, artists and readers, but because here you will find, as you do throughout the virtual pages of Persimmon Tree, words and images that will speak to you as no others do.
How can we find meaning in the face of aging, illness, and the inevitability of death? How can we respond to the double plague of a fierce pandemic and a divided society?
The keenly observant and urgent poems of The Holy & Broken Bliss are grounded in daily existence, human tenderness, the rituals of a long marriage, and the poet's ongoing spiritual quest. In the middle of a world that seems to be breaking down into suffering and anger, the spare and direct lines of these poems, surrounded by silence, offer a kind of healing. The poems ask us to consider what living looks like inside of ongoing misery (misery we often are responsible for making and accept-ing). They call us to ask ourselves how we locate joy and even laughter when despair is ever-present.
The Holy & Broken Bliss contemplates free will, autonomy, self-control, the commodification of ourselves, and our desires for vengeance, satia- tion, rage, and acknowledgment of our collective sicknesses, along with the sacred possibilities of love, communication with nature, the power of art, and the "need to praise."
"Ostriker confronts the intricate dance between spiritual despair and revelatory beauty in her ethereal 17th collection. ... [The Holy & Broken Bliss] resonates long after the final page, reminding readers that even in a fractured, plague-stricken world, there is still a living, breathing force within all things."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Available from Alice James Books, Amazon or Bookshop
Jean Zorn is publisher of Persimmon Tree and secretary/treasurer of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. She is a lawyer, and retired in March 2018 from the City University of New York School of Law, where she had worked for more than 30 years, primarily as a Professor of Law, and, most recently, as Senior Associate Dean for Administration and Finance.
Diane Rakocy, a Chicago-based painter, creates vibrant, nature-inspired paintings layered with color and texture--exploring the unseen details of life and how they connect us all. Her work, balancing abstraction and representation, has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows in Tokyo, Singapore, and the USA.
Thank you for including my artwork in the magazine!