"Matt Gano, whose swagger and soul and verbal dexterity have knocked out spoken-word audiences for years, brings his staggering inventiveness to the page-where he also, and absolutely, belongs. Here are irresistible scenes out of the sagebrush and empty lots of a charmed and timeless boyhood; love from all sides-wild-horse young, and 94 years old; and the moon: brilliant, unexpected, new, 'with ... lemon-meringue peaks/ and eating-contest complexion.' These are beautifully-crafted poems, alive with startling transitions, humor, and the wisdom that lets 'the rhythm in the ride be what I...
"Matt Gano, whose swagger and soul and verbal dexterity have knocked out spoken-word audiences for years, brings his staggering inventiveness to the p...
"These poems tell stories of the place where I live and the place I love. These are poems that will touch you and make you think. Many you will read over again." --Marty Sherman, former editor of Flyfishing magazine, and salesman for ClackaCraft Drift Boats "Norman Maclean wrote that, 'Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.' This is the ancestral place from which Scott Starbuck dipped his hands and brought us poetry. This is the human condition diffused like sunlight through water. Starbuck has shown us...
"These poems tell stories of the place where I live and the place I love. These are poems that will touch you and make you think. Many ...
Susan Gordon's extraordinary language conveys us through death to dissolution and transfiguration, as she bears careful, caring witness to the body of a belly-shot doe day after day, week after week, month after month, through all seasons of the weather and the soul. Time and again precise description breaks open into transcendent vision; beauty entwines with horror, both driving towards the "unraveling / of what comes / after everything has been undone." This is a masterpiece, a poem I will cherish and revisit for many years.
--Jo Radner, author of Yankee Ingenuity on CD,...
Susan Gordon's extraordinary language conveys us through death to dissolution and transfiguration, as she bears careful, caring witness to the body...
"These poems are restless. They describe concisely her themes of geographic dislocation and without saying it outright, she zeros in on a universal wish to belong. As the poems inhabited place after place, I kept wanting to know where they would lead. Nelson's poems, idiosyncratic in form, evoked a deep sensation. Her voice shifted something within me." -Carol Levin, Concrete Wolf Contest judge & author of Stunned by the Velocity
"These poems are restless. They describe concisely her themes of geographic dislocation and without saying it outright, she zeros in on a universal wi...
-In Gone to Gold Mountain, poet Peter Ludwin brings to life the little-known story of Chea Po and his fellow Chinese gold miners, massacred in 1887 by Eastern Oregon pioneers. Ludwin embodies Chea Po and his experiences of breathtaking racism, homesickness, and dislocation. He imbues these persona poems, letters, and laments with the finely-drawn landscapes of Hells Canyon and China, glowing lanterns, and an eagle circling the canyon rim. Chea Po seems to have haunted Ludwin until finally, here, his life and death are told justly. We are the richer for it.---Kathleen Flenniken
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-In Gone to Gold Mountain, poet Peter Ludwin brings to life the little-known story of Chea Po and his fellow Chinese gold miners, massacre...
"Like 'two bodies lean into each other, ' the poems of Rough Grace-some drawn from life, some responding to paintings-support and extend one another in a poetic yin-yang that explores the relationships between art and life. Raphael Helena Kosek gives us a beautiful collection to 'clear the unholy noise' of distraction, balancing poetic skill and human tenderness in lines of tensile energy and gentle repose." -Nancy Pagh, award judge, author of No Sweeter Fat and After
"Like 'two bodies lean into each other, ' the poems of Rough Grace-some drawn from life, some responding to paintings-support and extend one another i...
"Rena Priest addresses those who crave 'the meat of beasts with beets and leeks.' And while she insists that 'Nature makes you pay, ' her poems tell us that through a 'wistful song of sighs.' The world is not always comfortable, but her poems never 'lose touch with the fluidity of the spirit.' Patriarchy Blues is an amazing collection."
--James Bertolino, author of Ravenous Bliss: New & Selected Love Poems
"Rena Priest addresses those who crave 'the meat of beasts with beets and leeks.' And while she insists that 'Nature makes you pay, ' her poems tel...
"From the first words in Hold This, Martin invites us into a universe of yearning and transformation, as the boy narrator shimmers into the body of a bird whose feet are 'letters' and whose wings allow him to ascend the mysterious reaches of a broad sky. Here, love and death contend within the confining frame of time. Mirrors may be both glass to reflect our questions, our desires, our fallibilities, and doors opening into a new vision of the world in which we are lucky enough to live. Full of feeling, but never sentimental, Martin beckons us to consider the deep questions even while...
"From the first words in Hold This, Martin invites us into a universe of yearning and transformation, as the boy narrator shimmers into the body of...