Bøger udgivet af The Poetry Box

A Poetry Box Chapbook Prize (2018) FinalistTake a peek into the mystery of other people as Sally Zakariya shares stories of those she knows, those she remembers from childhood, and the ones she's merely observed throughout her daily walk in life. Each poem serves as an introduction where the poet invites us to meet this man, this woman, these folks. Not only are we invited to bear witness to their lives, but we come to realize our common ground-our humanity-rather than focusing on the differences.Advance Praise for The Unknowable Mystery of Other People:Sally Zakariya's The Unknowable Mystery of Other People is a revelation. The elegant poems in this collection are each small but vividly drawn portraits of unique characters, from the disabled veteran begging coins to pay for his friend's funeral, to the Aunties baking their distinctive cakes and pies, to the Islamic calligrapher lunching with Allah. And every portrait tells a story-and a truth. We see the famous Irish giant towering above us when she writes: "Black hair, big jaw, coke-bottle glasses./He was so tall his legs refused to fit/in any ordinary car." And we glimpse something of the soul of the watchmaker's one-eyed wife when Zakariya tells us: "Today a watch has died, hands frozen still…/Single-eyed, she resurrects it." Even for the "Nobody," "Death knew his name, called him by it." What seems unknowable becomes known, and the reader cannot help but find the mystery and the humanity in each of her varied subjects.~ Charan Sue Wollard, Author, In My Other Life and The Magician's WifeWith spare but select words, Sally Zakariya reveals the essence of a person and transforms often-ordinary experiences of life into vital vignettes. On the lawn outside a smoldering house "a man sat at a scorched piano…pajamas/soot-smudged…fingers finding solace in familiar keys." Of a homeless vet accepting coins at the intersection she notes "Desert Storm destroyed his legs, the V.A. failed/to fix them, still he jokes with his regulars." Her poetry moves from existential questions arising during an eye exam to sweet memories revealed between lines of cake recipes-on each page, witnessing the extraordinary potential often lying just below everyday encounters.~ Rebecca King Leet, Living with the Doors Wide Open

In Gospel Gone Blues, Jimmie Ware speaks directly from her soul to share her poetic truth- thoughts on the human condition alongside an intimate look into her personal life. Employing her talents as an acclaimed spoken word performer, she weaves the raw, the tender, the not-always-pretty side of life with the pulse of jazz and blues as a backdrop for her captivating poems.___________________________________"I fell in love the first time I heard her. Jimmie Ware has a magical way of weaving life into art and art into action. Her sweet words fall on your soul like the softest feathers, soothing any distress right out of your days." - J. Ivy, Grammy award-winning poet, author, actor"These short, thoughtful poems are a wise woman's recognition that true wisdom comes with scars-and that the light that finds us after the darkest night is most beautiful when seen through the prism of tears." - Regie Gibson, literary performer poet, author, educator"A playlist of passion, purpose, and personality that only Jimmie could bring with such depth, honesty and energy." - Stacy Eden, slam artist, poet

Abruptio-A mother's worst fear is realized at 23 weeks into the pregnancy, and a baby girl is born at the edge of viability. Melissa Fournier shares her profound grief for her daughter's brief life in these intimate poems that reflect the power of grace to transform sorrow into resilience and hope. EARLY PRAISE:"Fournier knits fragments together into the baby's shroud to show us, the readers, the empty home, the mother's weeping breasts, this child Camille Grace, this family, this world, its grief." -Dr. Rita Charon, Columbia University Narrative Medicine"Melissa Fournier's poems mirror the presence of her lost child: small, exquisite, unknown. I'm reminded that trustworthy voices are those who do not turn away from pain or love. Fournier is one of those voices." -Teresa Scollon, poet author,To Embroider the Ground with Prayer"This poet has an astonishing ability to elicit the ache of grief, her skill with metaphor leading us to understand what is inherently incomprehensible." -Joanna White, poet and music professor, Drumskin and Bones

Cathy Cain, like a bee to flower, gathers thought from one encounter with nature to another. She speaks from many perspectives - as tree, as mushroom, as goddess-hero, or as herself. Sometimes playful, even mystical, Cain is deeply honest as she confronts the state of our relationship with the natural environment, with technology, and with what it means to be human.EARLY PRAISE for BEE DANCE:"Thrumming with a wise and generous curiosity, the poems in Cathy Cain's Bee Dance are bright signposts pointing a way forward through a difficult age." ~ Annie Lighthart, author of Lantern and Iron String "A roadmap to abundance, Cathy Cain's poetry expresses the impulse to reinvent ourselves outside of cyber noise and instead define ourselves within the boundaries of sentiencies around us." ~ Tricia Knoll, author of How I Learned to be White and Broadfork Farm

A Poetry Box Chapbook Prize Selection -- 1st PlaceShrinking Bones by Judy K. Mosher is the first place winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize for 2018. These poems grew from the author's journey with her aging mother and her memory of her "past paid work-life" as a professor of anatomy and physiology. The collection is a rich marriage of poetic observation joined with an in-depth understanding of the human body. It portrays a beautiful story of love, loss and grief, as well as the complex relationship between mother and daughter._________________________________________________"Mosher has invoked the metaphor of the bones of the body to describe the gentle path to the end. Her mastery, the metaphor and the simplicity of the poems focus a unique light on the journey." ~ Lee Firestone Dunne, poet/author Life in the Poorhouse and Cocktail Shaker"Judy Mosher has done a masterful job of bringing anatomy and poetry together in a way that enhances the understanding of both. An enlightening collection!" ~ Miriam Sagan, poet"Mosher skillfully juxtaposes each poem with a description of bones - fingertips, ossicles, orbits, even a phantom limb - to build a framework of tender poems that detail how her mother cared for her, mellowed as time passed, even what made her mother laugh." ~ Tricia Knoll, author of Broadfork Farmand How I Learned To Be White

A Beautiful, Heartrending Memoir in PoemsSometimes our lives are divided in two - the before and the after. Insert something in between that is so profound, and it feels as if your very molecules are rearranged. For Dianne Avey, this was the day her soul left her body in search of her deceased husband. Impossible Ledges takes the reader on her journey through illness, death, visiting her husband in the afterlife, and returning to her ordinary life that will never be ordinary again.___________________________________"Impossible Ledges belongs on the shelf with Tennyson's In Memoriam. Dianne Avey's poems of grief and consolation are that true and that tender." ~ Paul J. Willis, author of Deer at Twilight: Poems from the North Cascades"Poignant and starkly real, these poems leave you feeling nourished and full." ~ Glenna Cook, author of Thresholds

All That She Can is a collection of poetry that encompasses motherhood, family history, what it means to be a woman today-and the lust inside of us all. All That She Can tells the story of love, betrayal, passion, and rage. It explores themes of family while acknowledging the complexity of familial ties; it reaches into grasping the twisted nature of mental health; and it documents the contradictory feelings of elation and rejection that often arise within romantic relationships.

An Eyeful of Hennepin Neon is a story of loss, thrill, and temptation, for anyone who has ever tried to claw their way out of savage memories with lonely sex and hard liquor. Haaland's poems will lie through their teeth as they avoid eye contact with sensations and situations they refuse to dignify with names. From barbed-wire wastelands to the bright neon streets of a flyover metropolis, this is a story that won't take silence for an answer.

A Poetry Box Chapbook Prize Selection - Second Place Reading November Quilt, by acclaimed author and poet, Penelope Scambly Schott, is akin to making a new friend. Brew a cup of tea and curl up in your favorite reading chair as you're invited to share life experiences, aphorisms, confessions, and curious ponderings in this delightful collection of 30 poems (one for each day of the month).

The Shells in the Sieve are the things of substance in our lives that we keep as we move through growth, change and renewal. Family, sense of self and a deep reverence for the great wheels of the natural world are the solid artifacts found on the shore in these poems. Voiced from the perspective of various, sometimes in animate entities, the work here seeks to express the power of place amidst constant change and the search for grace in the human endeavor. ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ "Nathan Fryback has crafted a collection of unbelievable beauty and loneliness in this his first collection. From things as seemingly mundane as a grocery cart to the fantastic supernatural of the moon and stars, he expertly pulls you in and takes you on a journey of not only his own history and life experience but makes one consider one's own life in a poignant and sometimes bitter sweetness. A must have for all poetry lovers." -Sarah Walker, fiction writer, professor of Anthropology at CSU, San Marcos "Shells in the Sieve is a breath of fresh poetic imagery, reflections, and captivating thoughts. Exciting and inspiring piece of work. Fryback writes masterfully and in a charismatic manner, the language of poetry." -Thomas M. Yeahpau, author of X-Indian Chronicles

In Built to Last, Tara L. Carnes weaves the voices of survivors into poems to take a fearless look at domestic violence and the support systems that make it possible to heal from the trauma. ¿¿¿¿¿ "...at the core of this trilogy of suffering and survival, there is a deep reverence for those both Divine and earthly who have journeyed with her in the darkness/ sharing [their] wisdom and faith."-Cathy Smith Bowers, Poet Laureate of North Carolina 2010-2012 "This collection of poetry empathically speaks their truth. And more than their truth, it records their hard-won transformation from victim to survivor."-Ingrid Knox "You cannot read this poetry and not be affected by it."-Mary Kay Hunyady, Psychologist, PsyD, MA, MEd "At times sad and disturbing, at others hopeful and even funny, Carnes recounts the realities and hurdles an abused woman, especially one with children, faces in a society where everyone would just as soon Not Know."-Linda Weiland

This collection of poems explores what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. Through the eyes of the poet as young girl, teenager, daughter, granddaughter, wife and mother, we traverse both the triumphs and heartbreaks of womanhood. Let these poems blanket you in the realization you are not alone-you have a community who will help you navigate the waters of misogynistic behavior and societal expectations. The scars of each of our experiences are there to remind us how far we've come, and give us the strength to keep rising.