“Frankenstein’s Nursery Rhymes” and Other Unpublished Poems by Joy Davidman

In 2015 I edited and published A Naked Tree: Joy Davidman’s Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems. I avoided referring to this volume as the collected poems of Davidman since I decided to withhold publication of twenty-nine poems, primarily because I wanted the attention of readers to focus upon Davidman’s forty-five sonnets to Lewis as well as the poems comprising Letter to a Comrade, the only collection of her verse published during her lifetime. However, I now think it is time to bring these unpublished poems to print. With a few exceptions, I have arranged the poems in chronological order as dated by Davidman. In cases where she did not provide a date, I suggest a possible date and indicate so by use of a question mark. Rather than offer an analysis of each poem, I place them into three groupings, summarize each in a sentence or two, and then invite readers to explore on their own the ideas, images, and subtleties found in the poems.