The Red Dress

Mary Ann Mulhern spent eight years in a convent. She entered a few years after teachers' college. As a young teacher, she enjoyed wearing rich colours, especially red. When she returned to teaching in Windsor, Ontario, wearing a religious habit, children often asked if she could wear colour, "just for one day?" This became the basis for this all-revealing book about the life of a single woman who enters the convent and watches her life become transformed by the strict rules of the church and her religious order. In these revealing poems, Mulhern tackles the delicate realities of a woman becoming aware of her sexuality. She talks both about the decision to become a nun, the first days in the convent " wearing Victorian undergarments, covering her hair, and the shame of one's own burgeoning sexuality " as well as the moment she decides to put that life aside. The poems are strong, incisive and bittersweet in their presentation.