An EveryDay Thing by Nancy Richardson (Summer 2018)

Join us for our summer 2018 tour for Nancy Richardson’s An EveryDay Thing, published by Finishing Line Press in July 2018.

Richardson’s poems concern coming of age in the rust-belt of Ohio during a period of decay of the physical and political structures that made the region once solid and predictable. Her poems chart the shifting of the foundations upon which a life is built and the unpredictability of events that have profound personal and political consequences, including the shootings at Kent State University.

Early Praise:

“Without poetry there would be no history,” wrote  Paz, and Nancy Richardson superb book is proof enough. Anchored in the tragic events of Kent State, but radiating out to examine other forms of violence and relationships, Nancy Richardson’s poems speak eloquently and superbly to our own times.  To do this she counterpoints the “everyday” whether that be an apt observation or a family event and its unique quality. So for instance, in “Queen Anne’s Lace,” set suddenly in the midst all this, she understands its “Delicacy / in the midst of loss,” but does not stop there, rather moves on to what good poetry should do—heal—as she ends it by noting “these petals of silk, this snowflake of stars,” an image that lets us transcend but not avoid the real world she describes. This is an important book, deftly written, a must read.   –Richard Jackson, UTNAA Distinguished Professor of English, Vermont College

“These terse, understated poems pack a great emotional punch. Unerringly, Nancy Richardson hits the mortal vulnerabilities and the socio-political ones. This book is a history of the grievous wastefulness of a post-WWII United States that in many ways has gone to hell; yet there is no accusation here. Rather, there is the poetry of what has been shattered—be it in a motorcycle accident or voter fraud or the Kent State killings—and cannot be put back together.”  –Baron Wormser, Author of Tom o’ Vietnam and former Poet Laureate of Maine

“Nancy Richardson‘s voice is clearly heard through this beautiful and insightful collection. She makes the ordinary extraordinary with her choice of rich images.” –Madeleine Kunin: Author of My Coming of Age: My journey through the Eighties

About the Poet:

Nancy Richardson’s poems have appeared in journals anthologies. She has written two chapbooks. The first, Unwelcomed Guest (2013) by Main Street Rag Publishing Company and the second, the Fire’s Edge (2017) by Finishing Line Press concerned her formative youth in the rust-belt of Ohio and the dislocation, including the Kent State shootings that affected her young adulthood. In An Everyday Thing, she has included those poems and extended the narrative to memories of persons and events and the make a life.

She has spent a good deal of her professional life working in government and education at the local, state, and federal levels and as a policy liaison in the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Education and for the Governor of Massachusetts. She received an MFA in Writing from Vermont College in 2005 and has served on the Board of the Frost Place in Franconia, NH. Visit her website.

Add to GoodReads:

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Blog Tour Schedule:

July 11: Diary of an Eccentric (Guest Post)
July 19: Ethereal Pages (Review)
July 31: Modern Creative Life (Poem)
Aug. 18 The Book Lovers Boudoir (Review)
Aug. 20: Necromancy Never Pays (Review)
Aug. 21: The Book Connection (Review)
Aug. 24: The Bookworm (Review)
Aug. 31: Wall-to-Wall Books (Review)
Sept. 18: True Book Addict (Review)
Sept. 21: Readaholic Zone (Review)
Oct. 11: Modern Creative Life (Essay)

Follow the blog tour with the hashtag #AnEveryDayThing #NancyRichardson