We went in to dinner. Moving from one room to the next … I inhaled in passing that incence of an old library which is worth all the perfumes of the world.
—Sign in Martha’s Vineyard bookstore
Authors Speak
This Succeed and Soar series invites writers to answer questions about their artforms and special inspirations.
Welcome Polly Alice McCann
Photo [c] 2014, Sandra Gould Ford
Visit Sandra’s Fine Art America Collections
Polly, what phrase inspires your writing and life?
In prayer, as in poetry we turn to words, not to use them as signs for things, but to see the things in the light of the words. . . . In poetry, in prayer, the words speak. . . . In our own civilization, in which so much is being done for the cause of the liquidation of language, the realm of prayer is like an arsenal for the spirit, where words are kept clean, holy, full of power to inspire and to keep us spiritually alive. Out of that arsenal we get the strength to save our faith, our appreciation of things eternal, from vanishing away.
~ Rabbi Abraham Heschel
How have Herschel’s words helped your writing, your life?
When I found Man’s Quest for God in my college library, I realized it was okay to be a poet and an artist. I understood creative work could be both useful and spiritual. Creative work, especially with words, could be building blocks for so many good things. I began by writing poetry, then books. Each creative work opening doors until I could face my own story and share my own testimony with words
How these words inspired Pray Like a Woman.
When Polly Alice McCann found her hope, faith, and creativity near death’s door, she was blown away by the Biblical story of Tabitha, an artist who made beautiful clothing for the “marginalized .”
McCann is the granddaughter of a Midwest Minister and several generations of Heartland prayer warriors, In this book, Polly, shares simple, time-tested methods of prayer and a few new ones.
She turns myths about prayer on their heads, proving that prayer isn’t selfish or magical, but can be a journey sometimes like “lightening,” sometimes like walking in “new shoes.” Devoid of “Christianese” or hard-to-get religious concepts, Polly shares twelve types of prayer with fresh and easy-to-remember imagery like “basket prayer” “patchwork prayer” and “flag prayer.”
Sample Text
Dear Father of all children of every kind,
You’re the one who causes everything to grow. Save me from sorrow. I’m in a hard place where nothing is as easy as I expected. People look down on me and I don’t have any kindness left, not even for myself. Some people doubt me and my good intentions; they don’t care for who I am, or the choices I’ve made with my family. They don’t understand my calling or the place you’ve brought me from. They don’t see the good future I know you promised to me and to my family. Help me remember your word. Remind me what is true.
Purchase Pray Like a Woman
About Polly Alice McCann
Polly Alice, McCann is a Kansas City artist, book designer, and poet with her MFA in Writing for children and young adults from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN. Her art has been published in US newspapers and magazines, most recently Rattle Magazine, and has shown internationally from Santa Monica to the Netherlands. Sally’s art has been collected on four continents.
McCann has edited three international poetry anthologies and over twenty-five other titles. A professor of poetry and art, she is the managing editor of Flying Ketchup Press. There, Polly “curates” galleries of talent. She says her favorite thing is to tell stories, maybe yours.
Learn more at www.pollymccann.com
Stories of wonder, fear, doubt, redemption.
Summer, 2020, McCann”s Flying Ketchup Press included my short story, “Wishes” in Tales from the Dream Zone.
The charming, must-read story is about a woman who finds a coin that gives her anything she wishes for. The story starts,
On October 31, 1958, moonbeams lit the stardust that sprinkled Crescent Avenue’s sycamore and hawthorn trees. On that clear, bright evening, candles dimmed inside jack-o-lanterns as Estelle Ringgold Pearson said, “We shouldn’t see any more spooky movies.”
Parnell held her hand as they strolled from the Roland Theater. He chuckled. “Did The Queen of Outer Space really scare you?”
“When that mask came off, her face was horrifying.”
Purchase Tales from the Dream Zone.
Thanks for shopping, Sandra
