"Swaying on the Elephants Shoulders" by Diana Woodcock is the winner of the first Vernice Quebodeaux "Pathways" Poetry Prize by Little Red Tree Publishing. It is a wonderful collection of poems expressing a three-fold concern for human rights, refugees and ecology. Each poem captures one of three states of readiness as the narrator is either poised to fly, held back, or drawn to the light. Each poem seeks to lend balance to the universe as it portrays the anguish or the joy of humanity and the pervasive sense of wonder available to us all. These are poems inspired by refugees, people living...

This is the story of a man feeling his mortality, trying to make sense of his past and possibly his future as he receives the diagnosis of White Matter Disease. It records a year in the life of a writer fixed in history, doing his best to transcend life's challenges and achieve spiritual certainty. Haunted by a glamorous past and the love of his life who has died, it traces his mind's progress as he travels the world and his own internal geography. Along the way, he sustains a man's worst loss, that of his mother, and the next, his beloved dog, and the next, his financial underpinnings. Like...