Books
Sweet Juice and Ruby-Bitter Seed startles the reader into wakefulness. Deceptively simple, sometimes pastoral, this courageous book consistently chooses honesty over sentiment. In doing so, it builds trust, invites companionship. Unafraid of grief, deeply caring, never jaded, the poems are raw and tender. In “A Northerner Faces East” she writes:
What millions of breaths have I
not noticed, my brother whispered
just before his last one.
Her husband’s death, her rural southern childhood, simple joys, terrible loss—all are shared with generosity. We are offered a glimpse of what it might be to live together bravely.
—Scudder Parker, author, Safe as Lightning
•
Publisher : Kelsay Books (May 14, 2023)
Language : English
Paperback : 90 pages
ISBN-10 : 1639802878
ISBN-13 : 978-1639802876
Item Weight : 6.7 ounces
Dimensions : 6 x 0.23 x 9 inches
To Carve a Path Through Thickets, Kelsay Books and Amazon.
Here is how Plymouth, MA poet laureate Miriam O’Neal describes this collection:
Readers of this collection take journeys both geographic and emotional, camping in the Ozark Mountains, strolling in Britanny, and visiting a grocery store. We find revelations about grief and its attendant grace, as well as gratitude for the gifts of agency claimed, the self understood, and the sacramental quotidian. “Retroflection” embodies the collection’s title as the speaker blazes through thickets of self-recrimination to self-understanding. From the “fire-lit soul” of a father finding his calling, to the grandchild who sees his grandmother as “sturdy and always,” we track the poet’s path, as Stephen Dunn has written, on the trail of “things we half-know,” but which poetry helps us reckon.
