Flare, Corona by Jeannine Hall Gailey (May-June 2023)
Please join us for our Spring 2023 blog tour for Flare, Corona by Jeannine Hall Gailey, published by BOA Editions in 2023.
Advance Praise:
“Who knew the apocalypse could be so fun? Jeannine Hall Gailey, that’s who. Our trenchant speaker, who ‘wrote a nuclear winter poem when I was seven,’ now in mid-life finds herself smack dab in the eye of a perfect storm: a mistaken terminal cancer diagnosis resolves itself into an MS diagnosis accessorized with a coronavirus crown. Yet these poems are deeply life-affirming, filled with foxes and fairytales and fig trees. Flare, Corona is a surprising, skilled, and big-hearted book.” — Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
“Everything really is connected is what I kept thinking as I read Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Flare, Corona. In it, the ecological crisis we face is felt in the marrow of the body, and ‘chronic illness’ becomes a phrase to characterize not only a human condition but our global one. Yet Gailey faces personal and societal illness with characteristic deep feeling and humor, and I was struck by the search for hope and optimism undergirding these inviting, image-rich poems: ‘Look to the future—perhaps that glow you see isn’t fire, but sunrise.’” — Dana Levin, author of Now You Do Know Where You Are
“The milieu of Flare, Corona, is at once literal and metaphorical: what blooms in the water and soil of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, ultimately blooms in the bodies of those who grew up there. This collection effortlessly toggles between what feels endangered in the macro-political scale of contemporary American society, and in the micro-medical reality of our speaker: ‘My first flare came on the week of the solar eclipse / when the shadow fell cold over us, and the birds stopped singing.’ What’s astonishing about this collection is how the poet showcases her trademark dark humor and vivid hyperbole — all the while pulling the reader in close to consider, frankly and with earned insight, the experience of chronic illness. Crafty uses of parallel structure and self-portraiture elevate personal narratives into poems that will outlive any apocalypse. This is an immersive, terrific read.” — Sandra Beasley, author of Made to Explode
About the Poet:
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She’s the author of five other books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and Field Guide to the End of the World, winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and the SFPA’s Elgin Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a non-fiction guide to help poets publicize their books. Her work has been featured on The Writer’s Almanac,Verse Daily, andThe Best Horror of the Year. She holds a B.S. in Biology and an M.A. in English from University of Cincinnati, and an MFA from Pacific University. Her poetry has appeared in TheAmerican Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry; her personal essays have appeared on Salon.com and The Rumpus.
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Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Raw Flesh Flash: The Incomplete, Unfinished Documenting Of by Donovan Hufnagle (May-June 2023)
Please join us for our Spring 2023 blog tour for Raw Flesh Flash: The Incomplete, Unfinished Documenting Of by Donovan Hufnagle, published by Uncollected Press in January 2023.
Advance Praise:
In poetry that draws on memoir, interviews, customer questionnaires, Havelock Ellis, descriptions of prison tats, and local legal codes, Donovan Hufnagle shows us how tattoos are life stories in the flesh. Using language that is always interesting, even astounding, he demonstrates the ways tattoos function as metaphor and metonym: we want to make our plans indelible, later to find them in need of revision, deletion, or acceptance. -Joseph Harrington, author of Of Some Sky and Things Come On (an amneoir)
Donovan Hufnagle has assembled a careful poetic ethnography of tattooed bodies and the stories that they tell. Just as the tattoo inscribes meaning on the body, this book elegantly reveals the stories that only the body can tell. It is a book that connects tattoo adorned bodies to a profound human truth: we are each other’s mirrors, and the artful inscriptions of our bodies connect us to each other in ways that transcend political and social divides. This is an urgent book that does what only the best poetry can do; it opens spaces for conversation, connection, and healing. -Kristin Prevallet, author of I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time
There is nothing more intimate than skin. In this way, Donovan Hufnagle’s latest poetry collection is staggeringly intimate. In it we find ourselves rifling through the back-office desk in the tattoo parlor, uncovering the story of skin in the artifacts, scraps, and half-thoughts we find there. Raw is a mythic space of tattoos, artists, and their stories. A tattoo-artist narrator in one poem tells us the secret he’s keeping from the girl considering the dragonfly tattoo, that “ink cuts away your flesh. I cut and burn you.” In this strikingly intimate space, we discover a truth only poetry can tell. The truth is that this will fuck us up, it will hurt, and we will be scarred for life. Like ink that tunnels through flesh, Hufnagle’s poems leave channels in the mind. Rivers of truth that allow us to consider the nature of skin, and pain, and the desire underneath it all. -Susan Ayotte Norman, author of 26 Queens
About the Poet:
Donovan Hufnagle is a husband, a father of three, and a professor of English and Humanities. He moved from Southern California to Prescott, Arizona to Fort Worth, Texas. His new poetry collection, Raw Flesh Flash: The Incomplete, Unfinished Of, is a poetic scrapbook of interviews, poetry, and documents about the universal narrative of tattoos He also has three other poetry collections: The Sunshine Special, a “part personal narrative, epic poem, and historical artifact;” Shoebox, an epistolary, poetic narrative about Juliana’s “past and present, love and lack, in language that startles;” and 30 Days of 19, inverted Haiku poems juxtaposed to Trump tweets, capturing the first thirty days of the Covid-19 quarantine. Other recent writings have appeared in The Closed Eye Open, Tempered Runes Press, Solum Literary Press, Poetry Box, Beyond Words, Wingless Dreamer, Subprimal Poetry Art, Americana Popular Culture Magazine, Shufpoetry, Kitty Litter Press, Carbon Culture, Amarillo Bay, Borderlands, Tattoo Highway, The New York Quarterly, Rougarou, and others.
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Available on Amazon.
portraits of red and gray: memoir poems by James Morehead (April-May 2023)
Please join us for our Spring 2023 blog tour for portraits of red and gray: memoir poems by James Morehead, published by Viewless Wings Press in March 2022.
Take an unforgettable journey from the Cold War USSR to Savery, Wyoming, from the mountains of Tuscany to the peak of Yosemite’s Half Dome, from the Canadian wilderness to the beaches of Normandy. James Morehead’s (Poet Laureate – Dublin, California) acclaimed collection is built around a series of memoir poems that takes readers into pre-perestroika Soviet Union through the eyes of a teenager, from Moscow to Tbilisi to Leningrad (and many stops in-between). The striking cover, designed by Zoe Norvell, is based on a 1982 lithograph by Igor Prilutsky.
Advance Praise:
“In this second collection of poems, James Morehead’s imagery is vivid, spare and elemental, and it is consistently chosen and arranged to achieve intensely poetic effects. The rhythmic control is impeccable. The centerpiece of this collection, a long series of poems that chronicle a trip through the former Soviet Union, is a fast moving, impressionistic feast of imagery. Sunglasses, denim shirts, vodka debauches, dollars, rubles, steely-eyed Russian authorities ever on the lookout for forbidden deals – all of it is transparent and engaging.” – Carmine Di Biase, Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus – Jacksonville State University
“In portraits of red and gray by James C. Morehead we travel with him through boyhood and manhood: camping with his dad, working in his high school years far away from home every summer, his time as a teen in Russia traveling during spring break with his school. The vulnerability and humanity expressed in these poems is moving. Morehead writes, ‘…I had to wait / for my tears to dry before dropping in quarters to call home.’” – Angie Trudell Vasquez, Author and Madison, WI, Poet Laureate
About the Poet:
James Morehead is Poet Laureate of Dublin, CA. portraits of red and gray is his second collection, and he hosts the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast. James’ poem “tethered” was transformed into an award-winning animated short film, “gallery” was set to music for baritone and piano, and his poems have appeared in numerous publications. He is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
April 18: the bookworm (review)
April 27: A Bookish Way of Life (review)
May 6: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)
May 9: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
May 11: Impressions in Ink (review)
May 15: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
May 23: CelticLady’s Reviews (guest post)
May 29: True Book Addict (review)
Follow the blog tour with the hashtag #portraitsredandgray
If The Sky Won’t Have Me by Anne Leigh Parrish (April 2023)
Please join us for our Spring 2023 blog tour for If the Sky Won’t Have Me by Anne Leigh Parrish, published by Unsolicited Press in April 2023.
The poems in If The Sky Won’t Have Me weave a brilliant tapestry of the human condition, focusing on nature, the female experience, family drama, aging, politics, and regret. Images of water feature strongly, as do rebirth and regeneration, both physical and spiritual. A perfect sequel to the author’s debut collection, the moon won’t be dared, these poems expand and deepen our understanding of what it means to be alive in a complex world.
Advance Praise:
Award-winning novelist Anne Leigh Parrish doubles down on her provocative debut poetry collection the moon won’t be dared with a new book of resonant and deeply emotional poems. If The Sky Won’t Have Me echoes with themes of love gained and lost, including relationships with family and the environment, through every stage of a woman’s growth. Recurring images of nature and water link the poems, culminating with the title poem where the poet craves rebirth in water: “If the sky won’t have me, … / I’ll stay just until clouds gather, / Rain falls again & I release myself once more.” If The Sky Won’t Have Me is filled with ringing poetic images that often read like personal parables and leave the reader wanting more. – Terry Tierney, author of The Poet’s Garage
Satisfying. Brilliant. Necessary. A beautiful and masterfully written collection of poems whose words evoke a sense of movement that beckons us back to the page and to the places we belong. – Loic Ekinga, author of How to Wake a Butterfly
About the Author:
Anne Leigh Parrish is the author of nine previously published books: A Winter Night (Unsolicited Press 2021); What Nell Dreams, a novella & stories (Unsolicited Press, 2020); Maggie’s Ruse, a novel, (Unsolicited Press, 2017); The Amendment, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2017); Women Within, a novel (Black Rose Writing, 2017); By the Wayside, stories (Unsolicited Press, 2017); What Is Found, What Is Lost, a novel (She Writes Press, 2014); Our Love Could Light The World, stories (She Writes Press, 2013); and All The Roads That Lead From Home, stories (Press 53, 2011). Visit her website.
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Available at Unsolicited Press and Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
April 4: BooksParlour (review)
April 6: The Booklover’s Boudoir (review)
April 12: Wall-to-Wall Books (review)
April 14: A Bookish Way of Life (review)
April 17: CelticLady’s Reviews (guest post)
April 19: Armed with a Book (interview/book excerpt)
April 21: Impressions in Ink (review)
April 28: True Book Addict (review)
April 28: Anthony Avina blog (review)
Follow the online tour with hashtag #iftheskywonthaveme
Our Wolves by Luanne Castle (Spring 2023)
Please join us for our Spring 2022 blog tour for Our Wolves by Luanne Castle, published by Alien Buddha Press in March 2023.
Advance Praise:
In Our Wolves, poet Luanne Castle navigates the timeless story of “Little Red Riding Hood” in a compelling collection of sharp, memorable poetry. Familiar tales are ageless for a reason. Their magic is that they can easily be transformed to explore subjects of abuse, danger, sexuality, self-sufficiency, and interpersonal relationships in a way that makes these challenging topics palatable to readers. Trying to find the reasoning behind Red’s traumatic adventure, as well as using it to comment on contemporary events, Castle creates taut narratives and sympathetic monologues to show how the story shapeshifts with the teller. Here, we hear from the wolf, the huntsman/woodcutter, Grandmother, townspeople, and Red herself. Not just a victimized or innocent child, Castle’s Red also appears in wiser (and sometimes older) incarnations that are knowing, rebellious, resilient, and clever. This technique subverts stereotypical conventions and shows that Red’s story “is not so very different from yours / and yours and yours and yours and yours.” Filled with atmospheric power, dynamic portrayals, and bright imagery, Our Wolves will haunt you long after you’ve returned from its woods. -Christine Butterworth-McDermott, author of The Spellbook of Fruit & Flowers
In this recasting of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, Luanne Castle’s wolves are not the wolves skulking in our imaginations. Her poems challenge our senses, bounce from view to view, shifting their focal points. Grandmothers and red-coat-wearing girls may or may not bear guilt. Indeed, Granny may be the Wolf. Or the Wolf may be a father, pulling down panties to slap bare skin. The story is told “to search / for who, not why. It’s all about blame.”; Which is, of course, only one truth lurking within this fable. The poems in Our Wolves burrow under your skin and into your flesh. They don’t let go, no matter how you scratch; they’re unsettling, magical. Relentless. Unforgettable. -Robert Okaji, author of Buddha’s Not Talking
“Perhaps you were wrong.” In these imaginative and evocative poems, expectations are subverted, and flat, centuries-old characters are brought to life in both amusing and startling ways. Castle tells the old story of Red Riding Hood from new angles and perspectives, creating a multitude of responses from the reader, eliciting from us everything from moments of cringing to laughter. Most interestingly, Castle subverts the predictable and achieves complexity by using an unlikely combination of forms and mixed modes–from the more traditional lineated lyric and narrative poems to the unexpected Haibun and Abecedarian, using every technique available to create this lively and memorable book. These poems invite us to confront what we take for granted and then let loose our own inner wolf to bite in and savor them all–one well-crafted word at a time. -Kimberly K. Williams, author of Sometimes a Woman and Still Lives
About the Author:
Luanne Castle lives in Arizona, next to a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. She has published two full-length poetry collections, Rooted and Winged (Finishing Line Press 2022) and Doll God (Aldrich/Kelsay 2015), which won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Poetry. Kin Types (Finishing Line Press 2017), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Our Wolves (Alien Buddha Press 2023) is her second chapbook. Luanne’s Pushcart and Best of the Net-nominated poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, American Journal of Poetry, Pleiades, River Teeth, TAB, Verse Daily, Saranac Review, and other journals.
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
March 7: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
March 9: the bookworm (review)
March 16: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)
March 20: True Book Addict (review)
March 20: Books Parlour (review)
March 24: A Bookish Way of Life (review)
April 4: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)
April 14: Impressions in Ink (review)
Follow the online marketing tour with the hashtag #OurWolves
Damnation and Cotton Candy by Alan S. Kessler (Nov. 2022)
Please join us for our Winter 2022 blog tour for Damnation and Cotton Candy by Alan S. Kessler, published by Leviathan Books in June 2022.
The poetry in it is about war, climate, family, childhood, reality, illusion and ghosts — many ghosts; Includes statement poems in free verse and prose that are personal, political, sometimes painful; sometimes a surrealistic convergence of opposites: “…the gray rainbow trails of stone-eyed butterflies.”
About the Author:
Alan S. Kessler lives in Vermont with his wife, children, dog, and two cats. He’s authored six novels. Damnation and Cotton Candy is his first book of poetry.
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Nov. 2: The Book Connection (guest post)
Nov. 8: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
Nov. 10: The Booklover’s Boudoir (review)
Nov. 14: Author Anthony Avina’s Blog (review)
Nov. 16: Wall-to-Wall Books (spotlight)
Nov. 17: CelticLady’s Reviews (guest post)
Nov. 18: True Book Addict (review)
Follow the blog tour with the hashtag #damnationcottoncandy
Still, the Sky by Tom Pearson (Oct.-Dec. 2022)
Please join us for our Fall 2022 blog tour for Still, the Sky by Tom Pearson, published by Ransom Poet Publishers in May 2022.
Still, the Sky is a speculative mythology rendered through poetry and art that combines the tales of Icarus and the Minotaur and creates for them a shared coming-of-age through a correspondence of written fragments, artifacts, ecofacts, and ephemera. Fragmented memories, relics, and confessions combine in a labyrinth of fever dreams and meditations which contemplate innocence and experience, war and peace, exile and homecoming, flight and failure, love and loss.
Advance Praise:
“Mesmeric and enveloping… fluid poetry and stunning visual multimedia” — Kirkus Reviews
“Still, the Sky is a labyrinthine poetic epic that fleshes out a resilient and multifaceted mythological brotherhood.” — Dontaná McPherson-Joseph, Foreword Clarion Reviews
“This striking collection of dramatic verse interrogates, complicates, and humanizes… A work of originality and power, Still, the Sky… has the expressive clarity of dramatic monologues. Sharply vivid verse, powered by yearning and precision of language”
— BookLife by Publishers Weekly (Editor’s Pick)
“A feast for the eye, the heart, the spirit… reminiscent of the best of Robert Graves and Ezra Pound… Clearly a poet — a poet of words, and a visual poet — is at work here. — Pacific Book Review
“A wellspring of carefully-wrought imagery… Pearson’s poetry accomplishes a unique etherealness, precariously tethered to the present with a gossamer string, leaving the reader to feel the distance of millennia.” — Independent Book Review
About the Author:
Add to GoodReads:
Available at Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Oct. 19: Pages for Sanity (Instagram Review)
Oct. 27: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (Interview)
Oct. 28: Author Anthony Avina Blog (Review)
Nov. 12: Author Anthony Avina Blog (Guest Post)
Nov. 15: Wall-to-Wall Books (Review)
Nov. 29: The Book Lovers Boudoir (Review)
TBD: Jorie Loves a Story (Review)
Follow the online tour with hashtag #StilltheSky
Sticks and Stones by Chelsea DeVries (Oct.-Nov. 2022)
Please join us for our Fall 2022 blog tour for Sticks and Stones by Chelsea DeVries, published by One Girl Revolution in Dec. 2021.
In Sticks and Stones, DeVries paints a poetic picture of rising above toxicity, love found and love lost, and delves into what it means to find strength in the human spirit. Through poetry, the reader finds a voice of strength and the rebuilding of one’s heart a home with all the sticks and stones thrown upon it. Newly expanded with more full color photos, 41 new poems, and a rewrite of Drowning in An Ocean of No Tomorrows, DeVries shows a full poetic picture of turning pain into poetry in order so you can rise above whatever is pulling you under.
Advance Praise:
“This collection of poetry and innovative thinking by Chelsea DeVries is a remarkable work of words. Sticks and Stones: Full Story Edition is a definite read, and please, read the dedication at the beginning of the book, and then you know the set stage for this book. It is personal. The words almost float across the pages, bringing different situations and emotions to light, in a very toxic world. After reading this, I realized what the title actually alludes to, and how it just fit this unputdownable collection. Such a wonderful read. My favorite was Perks of Being a Wallflower which starts with ‘I’m just a girl, Really strong, like petals on a flower, I wilt.’ I liked this so much, I read many of the poems twice. I look forward to reading more by this poet. Sticks and Stones is a definite recommendation.” –Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.
“” – Amazon reviewer Sara Hovel
About the Author:
Chelsea DeVries Chelsea DeVries wanted to be a writer at the age of 7. Her first publishing credit came at the age of 14 with a poem in a student anthology. She then wrote nonstop while doing IB classes in high school. She published two YA novels while still in high school which after over 10 years she rewrote as a NA romance that she looks to put out as her next publication.She is a seeker of justice and uses her words to free this world’s outcasted, peculiar, and underdogs from the chains that bind them. When not writing she runs and does PR for authors and musicians with her bookish brand The Smart Cookie Philes. Though she’s Florida born and raised, she has New Jersey in her veins. She currently lives in Port Richey, FL with her squad of two dogs.You can follow her on Instagram and Facebook at @chelsealynnpoetry, and her squad at @dasquad26. In October 2020, DeVries was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome which is a
form of Autism.
Add to GoodReads:
Available at Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Oct. 11: Armed with a Book (guest post)
Oct. 19: Soapy Violinist (review)
Oct. 21: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)
Oct. 25: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
Oct. 30: Anthony Avina’s blog (guest post)
Nov. 2: the bookworm (guest post)
Nov. 16: Book Lovers Boudoir (review)
TBD: That’s So Nitra (review)
Follow the online tour with hashtag #sticksandstonespoetry
Love the Dark Days by Ira Mathur (Sept. – Nov. 2022)
Please join us for our Fall 2022 blog tour for Love the Dark Days by Ira Mathur, published by Peepal Tree Press Ltd. in Sept. 2022.
This frank, fearless and multi-layered debut centres on a privileged but dysfunctional Indian family, with themes of empire, migration, race, and gender. The Victorian India elephant in the room in Ira Mathur’s silk-swathed memoir Love The Dark Days is in chains. By the time calypso replaces the Raj in post-colonial Trinidad, the chains are off three generations of daughters and mothers in a family in their New World exile. But they are still stuck in place and enduring insecurity and threats, seen and unseen.
Set in India, England, Trinidad and a weekend in St Lucia, with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott Love the Dark Days (Peepal Tree Press) follows the story of a girl, Poppet, of mixed middle-class Hindu and Elite Muslim parentage from post-independent India to her family’s migration to post-colonial Trinidad. Profoundly raw, unflinching, layered, but not without threads of humour and perceived absurdity, Love the Dark Days reassembles the story of a disintegrating Empire.
Advance Praise:
“One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. A beautiful beautiful book.” –Michael Portillo, Times Radio
“Love The Dark Days is a troubled and troubling book, a heady brew that stays with you.” – The Observer
“A transcendent memoir about extremes of love and hate, princely wealth, and the rebellious, righteous poor. I loved it.” – Maggie Gee
“This brave and inspiring feminist critique of patriarchy and gender oppression set in Trinidad– framed by the delusional greed and grandeur of colonial India and a weekend in St. Lucia spent with Nobel laureate Derek Walcott — has terrific promise as a biting movie adaptation for the #MeToo era” – Etan Vlessing, Hollywood Reporter
About the Author:
Ira Mathur is an Indian born Caribbean freelance journalist/writer working in radio, television and print in Trinidad, West Indies. She also is currently a Sunday Guardian columnist and feature writer.
Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Add to GoodReads:
Available at Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Sept. 13: BooksParlour (Instagram review)
Oct. 6: The Reading Bud (review)
Oct. 12: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
Oct. 18: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
Oct. 27: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)
Nov. 24: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)
Dec. 30: Anthony Avina’s blog (guest post)
Follow the online campaign with #lovedarkdays
Rooted and Winged by Luanne Castle (Sept.-Oct. 2022)
Please join us for our Fall 2022 blog tour for Rooted and Winged by Luanne Castle, published by Finishing Line Press in September 2022.
The poems of Rooted and Winged explore the emotional and physical movement of flight and falling. They are of the earth, the place of fertile origins, and of the dream world we observe and imagine when we look upward. Golems and ghosts that emerge from the ground, as well as the birds and angels that live above us, inhabit the collection. We will always be striving for flight, even as we feel most comfortable closest to the earth.
Advance Praise:
“The poems of Luanne Castle’s Rooted and Winged are embedded in land and weather. ‘Bluegills snap up larvae in slivers of illusory light,’ she writes early in the collection, hinting at the sensibilities of the companionable speaker who will usher us through the book. She sees. She is open to the world out there. She calls herself ‘unknown but solid,’ a teller of ‘tiny limitless tales.’ She is engaged in the retrieval of generational memory: ‘one hairbrush, a plastic ball / a swaying branch, leaves decaying / the insides of my grandmothers’ fridges / bubble and pop into shards of memory / dangerous to the touch,’ she writes, enacting the progression from concrete detail to concrete memory to the kind of numinous memory that can be combustible. How rare it is, to discover a writer who notices that ‘Grandma used to stand under the bulb over the sink that haloed her and pearlized the onions she chopped,’ who can bring language to this: ‘When the last star falls to the others, / it darkens like the hush in a theatre, / a twinkling or two from silence.’ There is no arrogance in this book, but there is power.” –Diane Seuss, Pulitzer Prize winning author, author of frank: sonnets, Four-Legged Girl, and Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl
“Luanne Castle’s Rooted and Winged is an intimate journey through a topography where home encounters wilderness, and where the speaker must determine what she owes to her children, to aging loved ones, to the land and its wild inhabitants, and to herself. In poetry that reveals the connection between what we inherit and what we leave behind, between what changes and what remains constant, Castle explores the mystery of what happens after a person ‘survives [her] own birth.’ The resulting work is undeniably graceful, compelling, and heartrending. ‘The way the sun came between me and the water will always seem like an introduction,’ Castle writes, as she deftly creates, from the seemingly mundane, ‘something splendid.'” –Chera Hammons, author of Maps of Injury
“Rooted and Winged is a fitting title for this collection of poems that plant themselves in reality but often hint at the surreal. Throughout, Luanne Castle has mastered sound and image: ‘I’ve done my best with feet and fists, my small / lungs blossoming like paper flowers in water…’ The poem that lingers most for me is ‘A Year in Bed, with Windows’ in which stark details create a palpable intimacy.” –Karen Paul Holmes, author of No Such Thing as Distance.
About the Poet:
Luanne Castle’s new poetry collection is Rooted and Winged (Finishing Line Press). Kin Types (Finishing Line Press), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her first collection of poetry, Doll God (Aldrich), won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Poetry. Luanne’s Pushcart and Best of the Net-nominated poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, American Journal of Poetry, Pleiades, Tipton Poetry Review, River Teeth, TAB, Verse Daily, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Saranac Review, Grist, and other
journals.
Available at Finishing Line Press and from Luanne Castle’s Bookstore.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Sept. 15: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
Sept. 22: The Bookish Elf (interview)
Sept. 28: the bookworm (guest post)
Oct. 4: Author Anthony Avina’s Blog (interview)
Oct. 11: The Book Connection (interview)
Oct. 19: CelticLady’s Reviews (guest post)
Oct. 25: The Soapy Violinist (guest post)
Follow the blog tour with the hashtag #rootedandwinged @writersitetweet #LuanneCastle
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