In her stunning ninth collection of poetry, In June the Labyrinth, Cynthia Hogue tells a deeply personal lyric of love and loss through a mythic story. This book-length serial poem follows Elle, a dying woman, as she travels a trans-historical, trans-geographical terrain on a quest to investigate the labyrinth not only as myth and symbol, but something akin to the “labyrinth of the broken heart.” At the heart of Elle’s individual story is the earnest female pilgrim’s journey, full of disappointment but also hard-won wisdom and courage—inspired by Hogue’s own composited experience with loss, in particular the death of her mother. Rooted in the idea of the labyrinth as a symbol for life, as in the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe that Hogue would visit the summer of her mother’s death, these poems above all distill, fracture, recompose, and tell only partially?literally in parts but also in loving detail?the story of a life.
Why SIX? Because the collection is composed of six poems. And because the perspective in this collection shifts like a kaleidoscope, each image viewable from six possible angles. And because these poems, like the prevalent hexagons of the natural world—honeycombs, for instance—derive strength from their compression and their accumulation. “I call six times just to be sure you heard,” this speaker announces on the first page. These poems are also the six calls—calls to attention, calls to action, calls to account for something of our own. The speaker in SIX is insistent, scrupulous, and unflinching as she plumbs six essential aspects of human experience that have shaped us all: art, language, desire, vocation, faith, and life-changing love.
Vanishing Point concerns memory, cognition, history, and morality, as experienced through the process of aging and as seen largely through a seriocomic lens. The range is wide, from arrestingly dark to downright hilarious—sometimes both at once—and all stages in-between. The poet Jim Daniels has said about this book, “With profound wit and humility, with a purity and clarity of language that defines our best poetry, [Trowbridge] takes us on a wild ride and gives us our money’s worth.” The last section contains poems from Trowbridge’s graphic chapbook Oldguy: Superhero, with several new poems added to that series.
In her splendid fourth collection, poet Ellen Rachlin explores what she calls the "Permeable Divide"--the breach between the living and a loved one lost to death, the gap between confidence and hesitation, the gulf between banking and art, and perhaps most devastatingly, the chasm between freedom and habit. Rachlin combines her deliciously unique talents and background to speak about the differences between money and value. She crafts aphoristic and well-aimed poems that explode when we least expect them to--into a tender understanding of the rifts in our world. You will be catapulted from line to line, moved and inspired.
There is no fooling grief, Ellen Rachlin wisely writes, in her elegant, clear-eyed book, Permeable Divide. These are incorruptible poems of life's inevitable losses that always harbor emotional barter. Bad weather is useless as sorrow, the poet insists; but sorrow, without self-pity, is what Rachlin recognizes-- honestly, calmly, and compassionately -- as part and parcel of our sentient human design.
In her stunning new book, Ellen Rachlin explores, as if from a philosopher's point of view, the world around her. Reality, at times, is observed from a distance--a traveler contemplates the landscape and reckons, "The natural world is never enough." These are gems of poems which seek clarity while catching flashes of light.
"Stellar" is an interesting as well as compelling book of prose poetry that encompasses the wonderment of love. Further, stories of romance, love, and tragedy are told creatively through the eyes of 107 poems. In "Stellar" one will have a chance to go on an odyssey of figurative language, and will also get a refreshing sense of the human condition that we all need, and yearn for love. In "Stellar" one will also have a unique opportunity to view emotionalism seemingly painted by the masters. In reality, however, these poetic words of distinction cannot fit on a canvas, but are to be read on paper, and enjoyed by you and your imagination. About the Author I have been a dreamer since I was born in N.Y.C. My dreams started September 20, 1968. I moved to Los Angeles, California when I was very young. I received my education in Los Angeles, and joined the workforce a couple of years after graduating college. I did not start writing poetry until later in life. Friends, and family really enjoyed the beautiful words I shared with them from my poems. So, I continued to write, and published my first prose poetry book "Wonders" in 2009. I published my second book of prose "Romance with A Touch of Love"" in 2011. The dreams kept coming; and I continued to be inspired to write beautiful words. I am honored to share these beautiful words with the world in "Stellar"...
In Turn out the Light, Irish Author and Poet John Anthony Brennan takes us on a nostalgic magic carpet ride that begins in Ireland with ‘Radio Caroline’ and the pirate ships afloat on the North Sea, all the way to the heady heights of the birth of the ‘rock-n-roll’ revolution in ‘swinging’ London, just as the world was about to change forever.
Turn out the Light is a selection of tributes to the musicians who died while still young, many of whom the author met briefly, during the seminal days of the late sixties-early seventies in London. In Turn out the Light, Brennan, whose Don’t Die with Regrets was chosen as best memoir in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, pays homage to the music and the musicians who healed his mind and saved his soul, with his unique combination of free-verse narrative and poetic musings.
“Music, the ‘art of the muses,’ with its magical combinations of a handful of singular notes, can exalt, enthrall, inspire, thrill and exhilarate the senses. It can soothe the savage beast, console the dispirited and gladden a weary heart.” John A. Brennan
"In this remarkable collection Bonnell enters sideways, as it were, stories and histories that we thought we knew well. Lucid and lithe, her words tilt us into new regions of possibility. Her “Mama Bear” makes us privy to a new perspective on Goldilocks, and “The Ant’s Love Song to the Grasshopper” turns the moralizing fable into an exquisite, poignant villanelle. These and others claim a space of silence from the reader in which their reverberations may unfold."—Peter Schwenger, author of At the Borders of Sleep: On
Have you ever loved, been loved, been confused about love, or suffered from loss of love? All these feelings have been captured and shared in the words of heartfelt poems, compiled over many years by a former teacher and award-winning author.
Sherrill S. Cannon now shares her thoughts in this book of feelings. "As a teacher, I used poetry to help counsel many troubled teens and friends, and have continued this pattern throughout the years."
There are three sections in her book: Heads, Spinning, and Tails ... (Love & Loss: Coin Toss?). The variety of lyrical poetry forms include free verse, blank verse, haiku, and sonnets. Some poems are simply plays on words.
Lyrical Bondage is an erotic book of poetry steaming with sensuality, seduction, and temptation. The pages are saturated with lyrics that will evoke true emotions like love, hurt and desire. Lyrical Bondage is a stimulating and intense prose that will allow you to drift into a passionate escape. Dare to be enticed. The content of Lyrical Bondage is for mature audiences only.
"Here, Margo Berdeshevsky offers us vast interiorities—sensuous, erotic, complexly feminine. These poems may be distinguished for their musical intricacy and formal variation, but they are also profoundly moving, their speakers subsumed in memory, the constant presence of their bodies, the certainty mortality, and the intrusive violence of the worlds they inhabit. This is a marvelous, deeply humane collection—one I will return to with pleasure." —Kevin Prufer
"Before the Drought is a lyric meditation on corporeal existence, suffused with atavistic spirit and set in historical as well as cosmic time , a work of radical suffering and human indifference but also sensual transport. The tutelary spirits of these poems are the feminine principle, and a flock of messengers that include blue heron, ibis, phoenix, egret, and blood’s hummingbird. In the surround we find ourselves in the magical world of a floating balcony, and a field of cellos, but it is a world in peril, now and in the time to come, on the night of the Paris massacres and in a poisoned future. In the City of Light, Berdeshevsky writes poems commensurate with her vision, poems that know to ask How close is death, how near is God? Hers is a book to read at the precipice on which we stand." —Carolyn Forché
Poetry. "A brandishment of insouciant play, Jeanette Marie Clough's FLOURISH is a 'bold or extravagant gesture or action' from start to finish. Luring us with the name of a 'thing' we think we know and a slant first line, even the table of contents is refreshing. And yes, there is narrative—an explosive, subterranean one—but what is so distinctive is the wholly unusual method by which it is deployed: like hot post-modern pancakes on a platter. You can eat in any order, pile on several at a time—you can even shuffle them. Think of them as thing poems, part definition / riddle / koan. That dictionary you didn't know you needed: it's this one. With sly humor and casual self- mockery, line by playful/deadly line, Clough redefines the upended world as it has redefined her. Even within the sprawl of a sometimes-harrowing emotional arc, the poems pop with wild originality and bracing joy. I cannot get enough of them."—Sarah Maclay
Recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, "Laura Mazza-Dixon's Forged by Joy is a test of light against time, from innocence to loss, a spiritual autobiography seen first through a girl's eyes that behold wonder in everything, including stones - 'sea-polished ovals, green trapezoids laced with gold' - and forged through a life of art and love and loss, arriving at the question, 'Can joy weigh more than grief?' These are graceful, softly cadenced poems of belief carried against the final darkness we all face." Doug Anderson, poet and author of Blues for Unemployed Secret Police
Because Sarah Glaz sees "a streak of mathematics in almost everything," this book of poems is a work of alchemy. Light rays in the sky, lines of gold, become x and y axes. The square root of 2 becomes a symbol of the irrationality that drove her family from Romania to Israel. Small stones stand for the calculus (in Latin) and the integral sign is a snake (in Leibnizian). The transcendental number e covers three pages laced with equations, first appearing as a pirate, then Euler's namesake, then a peacock's tail and finally a poetic star. Logic proves its own inability to prove with cymbals and umlauts. The precious fruit of labor is both a baby and a theorem, depending. The fabric of the universe is algebraic; lemmas are blue, corollaries orange, theorems purple. The poet's backpack is full of theorems, and commutative rings grow in her garden instead of weeds. A ghazal utters a gazelle, water becomes wavelets, and sunshine weaves the Golden Ratio into everything it covers. Train tracks converge at infinity, defying Euclid's Fifth Postulate. Don't miss these transformations! -Emily Grosholz, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University; author of The Stars of Earth, New and Selected Poems.
Poems and drawings from our shared human experience that will make you laugh and cry and wonder. You’ll meet messy children, distracted soccer moms, condescending doctors and turbulent teens, while exploring themes of love and loss, teeth whitening, flatulence, hopeless clutter, the perfect recliner, and the annoying habits of other people. You’ll also enjoy the funky punctuation, sarcasm, hyperbole and rhyme—complete with humorous twists, tender moments and surprise endings.
Warning: Do not upset the author, or you may end up as the subject of her next poem!
Poetry. ANGLE OF REFLECTION features the work of ten award–winning Los Angeles poets with a remarkable 20–year history of working together. This luminous collection is both a sampler and a reservoir, capturing poems that serve as an entrée and retrospective as well as a showcase of current work. Perhaps the only umbrella term to categorize the poems here is lyric, though each poet's section offers an individual interpretation and definition. However, there is nothing fragmented about the way this anthology flows. Because of, and despite, the differences in these poets' singular voices, their poems carry on complex conversations across sections—correspondences that invite the reader to engage with the contrasts and similarities, themes and images. With an Introduction by esteemed poet David St. John, with whom some in the group worked weekly for many years, ANGLE OF REFLECTION is a celebration of community, collaboration, and the joy of poetic diversity.
Contributors include Marjorie Becker, Jeanette Clough, Dina Hardy, Paul Lieber, Sarah Maclay, Holaday Mason, Jim Natal, Jan Wesley, Brenda Yates, and Mariano Zaro.
