Blog Archives
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.
Add to GoodReads:
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)
April 21: Impressions in Ink (review)
April 26: 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 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
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
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
the dust of hope: rune poems by Judy Croome (Jan.-March 2022)
Please join us for our Winter 2022 blog tour for the dust of hope: rune poems by Judy Croome, published by Aztar Press in September 2021.
Judy Croome’s latest collection of poetry returns to the ancient ways of the Nordic runes, shining a light of hope and healing as we navigate through the wilderness of anxiety permeating these early years of the twenty-first century.
The simple verses console the reader with a calm acceptance that, even during a global pandemic, everyday life ebbs and flows with the natural rhythms of the timeless oceans.
Here are poems that invite us to stop, to breathe, and to see the world around us from a new perspective birthed within the centre of our souls.
About the Author:
Judy Croome lives and writes in Johannesburg, South Africa. Shortlisted in the African Writing Flash Fiction 2011 competition, Judy’s short stories, poems and articles have appeared in various magazines, anthologies and newspapers, such as The Sunday Times, The Huffington Post (USA) and the University of the Witwatersrand’s Itch Magazine. In 2021 and 2016, Judy was the poetry judge for Writers2000’s Annual Writing Competition. In 2021, Judy presented an hour long workshop to Writers 2000 called “The Gift of Poetry”
Judy loves her family, cats, exploring the meaning of life, chocolate, cats, rainy days, ancient churches with their ancient graveyards, cats, meditation and solitude. Oh, and cats. Judy loves cats (who already appear to have discovered the meaning of life.)
Her fiction and poetry books ‘the dust of hope: rune poems” (2021); “Drop by Drop: poems of loss” (2020); “a stranger in a strange land” (2015),”The Weight of a Feather & Other Stories” (2013), “a Lamp at Midday” (2012) and “Dancing in the Shadows of Love” (2011) are available from Aztar Press.
“Street Smart Taxpayers: A practical guide to your rights in South Africa” (Juta Law, 2017) was co-authored with her late husband Dr. Beric Croome (1960 – 2019). Follow her on GoodReads, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Jan. 27: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
Feb. 3: Anthony Avina Blog (review)
Feb. 9: Little Miss Star (review)
Feb. 11: Wall-to-Wall Books (review)
Feb. 17: Necromancy Never Pays (review)
Feb. 22: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (review)
March 2: Anthony Avina Blog (Interview)
March 11: True Book Addict (review)
March 22: the bookworm (review)
April 6: Pages for Sanity (review)
Follow the blog tour with the hashtag #dustofhope and @judy_croome
Out of No Way by Rojé Augustin (Jan. – April 2022)
Join us for our Winter/Spring tour for Rojé Augustin’s Out of No Way: Madam C.J. Walker & A’Lelia Walker, a poetic drama published in May 2020.
Author, producer and emerging poet Rojé Augustin has written a groundbreaking debut collection of dramatic poems about hair care entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and her daughter A’Lelia Walker. Out of No Way: Madam C.J. Walker & A’Lelia Walker, A Poetic Dramatracks Walker’s phenomenal rise from penniless orphan to America’s first self-made female millionaire in dramatic verse.
Born Sarah Breedlove to former Louisiana slaves in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, became a mother at 17, and was widowed at 20. After the death of her first husband, Sarah moved to St. Louis with her daughter where she earned $1.50 a day as a washerwoman. When her hair starting falling out she developed a remedy and sold her formula across the country. In the process she became the wealthiest Negro woman in America. Rojé’s highly original and accomplished poetry is written through the lens of the mother/daughter relationship via different poetic forms — from lyric poems to haikus, blackout poetry to narrative (one poem takes its inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’) — with each chapter addressing issues relevant to their lives at the time.
Written against the backdrop of the Jim Crow era, Out of No Way is ultimately an examination of what W.E.B Du Bois called “conflicting identities.” Sarah was a proud African American on the one hand and a woman seeking America’s acceptance on the other. She was a pauper who achieved the American Dream while denied the rights and protections of the American Constitution. She was a wife, mother, and businesswoman who juggled the demands of family with the demands of career. And she was an orphan who had to transcend a brutal childhood in order to be a loving mother to her child. As Du Bois stated at the time, “One ever feels a two-ness. An American, A Negro…Two warring ideals in one dark body.” Indeed Madam C.J. Walker/Sarah Breedlove was an American and a Negro, as was her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, both of whom likely viewed herself through their own conflicting identities. What did they see?
Out of No Way tells Walker’s remarkable rags-to-riches story by exploring thoughtful questions — What impact did Sarah’s busy work life have on A’Lelia? What was the bond between a mother orphaned so young and the daughter who might wait days or weeks for her return? Could the death of her parents when she was a child have compromised Sarah’s nurturing instincts? How did A’Lelia feel about their newfound wealth? What, if any, were the drawbacks of that wealth?
Check out this video reading of “Why Our Hair Is Not Straight” from the book:
Check out this video reading of “Elegy for my Mother”:
Video Reading of “The Lost Letters”:
“Graves & Thrones” video reading:
About the Author:
Rojé Augustin is a native New Yorker who grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Her first novel, The Unraveling of Bebe Jones, won the 2013 National Indie Excellence Award in African American fiction. She wrote the novel while living in London and Sydney as a stay-at-home-mom. She established Breaknight Films shortly after her move to Sydney in 2009 to develop and produce television projects across a range of formats, including television, web, and audio. Her first Sydney based project was a podcast and visual web series called The Right Space, which explores the relationship between creatives and their workspace. Rojé continues to work as a television producer while also writing in her spare time. She is an Australian citizen who currently lives in Sydney with her Aussie husband and two daughters.
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
- Jan. 15: Review Tales Magazine (Words of Wisdom – link to purchase Winter issue)
- Jan. 19: Quintessential Listening (interview)
- Feb. 1: Nenitraanna (review)
- Feb. 10: Urban Lit Magazine (review)
- March 9: Life of a Female Bibliophile (review)
- March 22: @Bookdragon217 (Instagram review)
- April 7: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (review)
- April 14: Lit and Life (review)
- TBD: And I Thought Ladies (interview)
Follow the blog tour with the hashtag #OutofNoWay #MadamC.J.Walker #RojeAugustin
Winter at a Summer House by Mary Beth Hines (Dec. 2021-March 2022)
Please join us for our Winter 2022 blog tour for Winter at a Summer House by Mary Beth Hines, published by Kelsay Books in November 2021.
In Winter at a Summer House, Mary Beth Hines’s poems speak to the sublime and risks in every middle-class home, small city neighborhood, seaside retreat, or suburban backyard. Vivid, tactile imagery suffuses the collection, which follows the arc of a life from birth/first words to death/last words. Together, these poems create a sometimes heartbreaking, but often humorous and joyous, narrative that speaks to all readers.
Advance Praise:
“The poems in Mary Beth Hines’s first collection, Winter at a Summer House, strike a wonderful balance between narratives of everyday experience and a pristine, pure poetic imagination. Always rhythmically diverse, most of the time mellifluous, and often intense, Hines’s poetry vividly paints the life of a modern self-made woman, with her worries and obligations, her family, and her dreams. In response to the heroine’s world, this poetry, never static, vibrates with all sorts of emotions: love, friendship, youthful
infatuations, amorousness, jealousy, altruism. As a result, the book gives its reader all the pleasures of a novel – and of lyric novelty.” – Katia Kapovich, the author of Gogol in Rome and Cossacks and Bandits
“Mary Beth Hines sings to us out of the staircases, back yards, and swimming pools of a life sumptuously lived, a world rife with joys and enticements, with girlhood wish and adulthood tryst. Each song lifts on the updrafts of a language passionately breathed, The poems are arrayed with such stunning craft that the art dissolves into the narrative. One forgets that one is reading and imagines that one is reliving this life. Winter at a Summer House is, in the words of one of the poems, a “gift to spark remembrance,” as if the memories had become our own.” -Tom Daley, the author of House You Cannot Reach
“Hines grew up in Massachusetts, adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, and the poems in this debut collection are filled with richly detailed imagery evoking the sea—of characters swimming, bathing, diving, as if time were an unpredictable element and living, a process of navigating unexpected currents. … A dynamic and colorful set of poems inspired by water and ocean imagery. ” – Kirkus Reviews
Photo Credit: David Mullen
About the Author:
Mary Beth Hines grew up in Massachusetts where she spent Saturday afternoons ditching ballet to pursue stories and poems deep in the stacks of the Waltham Public Library. She earned bachelor of arts in English from The College of the Holy Cross, and studied for a year at Durham University in England. She began a regular creative writing practice following a career in public service (Volpe Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts), leading award-winning national outreach, communications, and workforce programs. Her poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction appear in dozens of literary journals and anthologies both nationally and abroad. Winter at a Summer House is her first poetry collection. When not reading or writing, she swims, walks in the woods, plays with friends, travels with her husband, and enjoys life with their family, including their two beloved grandchildren. Visit her online.
Add to GoodReads:
Available at Kelsay Books and Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Dec. 7: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (Guest Post)
Dec. 14: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (Review)
Dec. 15: Wall-to-Wall Books (Review)
Jan. 4: Author Anthony Avina (Guest Post)
Jan. 13: Author Anthony Avina (Review)
Jan. 26: The Book Connection (Review)
March 25: True Book Addict (Review)
March 30: Necromancy Never Pays (Review)
Follow the blog tour with hashtags #winteratsummerhouse and @MaryBethHinesXO
Your Words Your World by Louise Bélanger (Dec. 2021-Feb. 2022)
Poetry For Your Soul – Stunning Photographs
Zoom to Heaven
The most beautiful love poem
Where God is not there
Promises…
A handful of cloud
Clowns…
During the nightThese are some of the titles of the poetry you will read in this beautiful, inspiring collection complemented by captivating nature photographs.
Read poems about God and having a relationship with Him. Poems about trust, missing a loved one, childhood memories, Christmas, Heaven, Easter…
Other poems are lovely stories, the length of a page.
The poetry is easy to understand. It is for everyone whether poetry is your genre or not, you will enjoy it.
Advance Praise:
There are a number of 5-star reviews on Amazon, including this one: “Your Words, Your World is a beautiful collection of poetry, photographs, and story poems about God and the world He created, and the second book of poems by Louise Bélanger. It helps the reader look at the world in a new way. Among my favorite poems is Ordinary, about how God can take something ordinary, like a star or a body of water, and make it do extraordinary things. I also loved Dust, which reminds us that God created us all from something we don’t really like–dust. A War Erupted paints a beautiful and tumultuous picture of a thunderstorm. The Contest is a thought-provoking story poem about a conversation between flowers. Zoom to Heaven is probably my favorite of all, as it talks about what it would be like to have a Zoom conversation with a loved one in Heaven. Your Words, Your World takes a unique look at God and the world He created, and it makes me appreciate Him and this world all the more.” – BonnieD
About the Poet:Add to GoodReads:
Available at Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Dec. 3: the bookworm (Review)
Dec. 6: The Book Connection (Review)
Dec. 15: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (Guest Post)
Dec. 16: The Mary Reader (Review)
Jan. 5: Wall-to-Wall Books (Review)
Jan. 14: Just A Bookish Blog (Review)
Jan. 18: Christian Bookaholic (Review)
Jan. 19: Author Anthony Avina Blog (Guest Post)
Jan. 25: Author Anthony Avina Blog (Review)
Feb. 8: The Mary Reader (Instagram Review)
Feb. 15: Savvy Verse & Wit (Review)
Follow the blog tour with the hashtags #yourwordsyourworld #LouiseBélanger #poetrycommunity
the moon won’t be dared by Anne Leigh Parrish (Oct.-Dec. 2021)
Join us for our Fall 2021 blog tour for the moon won’t be dared by Anne Leigh Parrish, published by Unsolicited Press in October.
Unsolicited Press announces the release of the moon won’t be dared a poetry collection by award-winning author Anne Leigh Parrish that features artwork by Lydia Selk. In this momentous debut collection, the poet harnesses language to give readers a new vision of nature, the impossible plight of womanhood, love, aging, and beauty. Being a woman in a male-dominated society affords Anne Leigh Parrish the space to witness the world on an uneven keel. Parrish pays tribute to the splendor of seasonal renewal, but also weaves the harsh truths of betrayal and brutality into the laments holding the collection together.
Advance Praise:
Anne Leigh Parrish’s poems in the moon won’t be dared are an extended meditation that weaves through time and humanity, injustices and struggles, but with an eye towards love and beauty. These captivating poems carry an underlining ache of loss—past and future—but they are grounded in the present, in beetle and spider, in river and forest, in the windows that look into the yard. Parrish writes “we can only burn slowly over time,” and we see this book is full of light—fire, streetlight, smokelight, garden light, twilight, starlight, and in fact, “darkness/becomes light when the world bears us/along.” This is a voice willing to convey what isn’t working in the world, but also to always acknowledge what is—”a child of the night/who lived on moonlight and cold sparkle stars.” Parrish’s poems feed us, and they will “hold us long enough/to tinge the dawn with hope.”
—Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press).
Sample poem:
pulled back around
circle or line?
round or straight?
what did einstein say?
the universe bends in on itself, or
relates only to itself
i don’t know
but even a lizard remembers and is pulled
back around
and the memory held in my larger, more
deeply folded brain
cries to visit its hinterland, its former place
as easily as the world circles from
one day to the next
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.
Add to GoodReads:
Available at Unsolicited Press and Amazon for pre-order.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Oct. 8: Necromancy Never Pays (Review)
Oct. 13: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (Review)
Oct. 21: The Book Connection (Review)
Oct. 26: Anthony Avina Blog (Guest Post)
Nov. 4: Anthony Avina Blog (Review)
Nov. 16: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (Guest Post)
Nov. 19: True Book Addict (Review)
Dec. 14: Littlemissstar55 (Review on Instagram)
Dec. 14: Savvy Verse & Wit (Interview)
Dec. 15: Savvy Verse & Wit (Review)
Follow the blog tour with the hashtag #moonwontbedared #AnneLeighParrish
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