Blog Archives
Night of the Hawk by Lauren Martin (April -May 2024)
Please join us for the spring 2024 blog tour for Night of the Hawk by Lauren Martin, published by She Writes Press in May 2024.
When I have wandered
long enough
what am I still beholden to?Ifá. Nature. Illness. Love. Loss. Misogyny. Aging. Africa. Our wounded planet. In this sweeping yet intensely personal collection, Lauren Martin tells the untold stories of the marginalized, the abused, the ill, the disabled—the different. Inspired by her life’s experiences, including the isolation she has suffered as a result both of living with chronic illness and having devoted herself to a religion outside the mainstream, these poems explore with raw vulnerability and unflinching honesty what it is to live apart—even as one yearns for connection.
But Night of the Hawk is no lament; it is powerful, reverential, sometimes humorous, often defiant—“ Oh heat me and fill me / I rise above lines ”—and full of wisdom. Visceral and stirring, the poems in this collection touch on vastly disparate subjects but are ultimately unified in a singular to inspire those who read them toward kindness, compassion, and questioning.
Advance Praise:
“The poems gathered here address themes of survival, chronic illness, shamanism, and feminism against the backdrop of daily life. . . . The diversity of experience examined makes for a collection that is both full and human. A whole life in one volume.” —Kirkus Reviews “Night of the Hawk is a luminous and numinous collection about women and men, about betrayal and forbearance, about endurance, death, and art, and, most essentially, about the search for a sacred path through life. There is so much love in these poems” –Michael Laurence, award-winning playwright “Lauren’s poems drop into your psyche and ripple outward, echoing in the moments of life. Their beauty haunts.” –Sallie Ann Glassman, Head Manbo Asogwe of La Source Ancienne Ounfo
About the Poet:
Lauren Martin is a psychotherapist, poet, and a devoted Ìyânífá. She lives in Oakland, California. Lauren studied poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. She spent years writing without submitting her work due to a long shamanic journey, which led her to both Ifá, and to the writing of this collection of poems. Learn more at: www.laurenmartin.net
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon, Bookshop.org, and Barnes & Noble.
Tour Schedule:
April 16: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
April 25: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (review)
April 30: Lavender Orchids (review)
May 1: Wall-to-Wall Books (review)
May 6: The Reading Bud (review)
May 13: True Book Addict (review)
May 16: Adventureinlit (Instagram review)
Follow the tour with the hashtag #NightHawk
It Will Have Been So Beautiful by Amanda Shaw (March-June 2024)
Please join us for the spring 2024 blog tour for It Will Have Been So Beautiful by Amanda Shaw, published by Lily Poetry Review in March 2024.
With urgency and compassion, humor and wonder, Amanda Shaw’s It Will Have Been So Beautiful examines the many dimensions of what it means to call anything “home,” including the earth as we know it. In a manner reminiscent of Eugène Atget, who wrote “will disappear” on his photographs of turn-of-the-century Paris, Shaw captures the unique melancholy of living in a time of unknowable change.
As she explores the line between love and loss, Shaw implores us to find a more profound commitment to life in all its forms. At times playful and ironic, the poems celebrate language’s sonic capacities, probing art’s potential to move us from mourning to joy.
Advance Praise:
Alan Shapiro, acclaimed author of “Life Pig,” describes Shaw’s debut as “a beautiful and troubling book.” Shaw’s intelligence breathes life into every line, offering a rich, complex, and startlingly vivid exploration of the impact of the “enlightened” West juxtaposed with a poignant portrayal of the best and worst aspects of humanity.
Nathan McClain, author of “Previously Owned,” praises Shaw’s collection, noting that it is as interested in language itself as what language can create. With an “ear attuned to silences,” Shaw navigates the complexity of human interactions, addressing topics such as illness, home, love, and loss. The energetic collection uses a rich, musical dialect that resonates with the reader.
About the Poet:
From the time she learned to read her first word — “Boom!” — Amanda Shaw has been in love with literature and language. She earned a BA in English from Smith College and has advanced degrees in education and writing. Equally at ease in a high school classroom and a World Bank boardroom, she is an expert teacher who continues to share her belief in the power of words with students of all ages.
Amanda began her career at a public high school in Brooklyn, where she was committed to student-centered curriculum and staff development as part of NYC’s small schools movement. After nine years in the city, she moved on to teaching ESL internationally and domestically, first in Rome and now in Washington DC. Witnessing poetry’s unique impact on students’ intellectual and emotional development galvanized her own writing. In 2020, she received her MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers.
In addition to actively participating in local and online writing communities, Amanda is the book review editor for Lily Poetry Review Books, where she supports emerging writers. Lily Poetry Review Books will publish her debut collection, It Will Have Been So Beautiful, in March 2024. The poems, written over 15 years, explore love and loss in personal and global contexts. For the past four years, Amanda has divided her time between New Hampshire, where she was born, and Washington, DC. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon, Lily Poetry Review, and Bookshop.org.
Tour Schedule:
March 25: Lavender Orchids (review)
April 10: The Book Lover’s Bourdoir (review)
April 25: The Book Connection (review)
May 10: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
May 22: Wall-to-Wall Books (review)
June 6: True Book Addict (review)
June 24: the bookworm (guest post)
Follow the tour with the hashtag #SoBeautiful
Civil Twilight by Anique Sara Taylor
Please join us for the winter 2024 blog tour for Civil Twilight by Anique Sara Taylor, published by Blue Light Press in April 2023.
Book Synopsis:
Anique Sara Taylor’s chapbook Civil Twilight is the winner of the 2022 Blue Light Poetry Prize.
As the sun sinks 6 ̊ below the horizon at dawn or dusk, it’s 5:30am/pm someplace in the world. In thirty shimmering poems (30 words/5 lines each), Civil Twilight probes borders of risk across a landscape of thunderstorms, quill-shaped mist, falcons that soar, the hope of regeneration, a compass to the center. Tightly hewn poems ring with rhythm and sound, follow ghosts who relentlessly weave through a journey of grief toward ecstasy. Spinning words seek to unhinge inner wounds among sea shells and hostile mirrors, eagles and cardinals––to enter “the infinity between atoms,” hear the invisible waltz. Even the regrets. The search for an inner silhouette becomes a quest for shards of truth, as she asks the simple question, “What will you take with you?”
Advance Praise:
“Taylor’s award-winning collection is mesmerizing. 30 poems, 30 words each shimmer with a refined intensity at once both taut and expansive … her emotional richness is as lyric as it is restrained.” ––Leslie T. Sharpe, Author of The Quarry Fox and Other Critters of the Wild Catskills
“Experience each poem, woven [with] great intimacy and rare musicality … Read all 30 poems aloud in sequence and feel yourself transformed.” ––Sharon Israel, Host of Planet Poet, Words in Space Radio Show and Podcast
“Civil Twilight is a stunningly crafted sequence of small poems … keenly attuned to the language of the natural world and all the mysteries that come with it.” —Sean Nevin, Author of Oblivio Gate
About the Author:
Anique Sara Taylor’s book Civil Twilight is Blue Light Poetry Prize 2022. Where Space Bends was published by Finishing Line Press 2020. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her chapbooks chosen Finalist in 2023 are: When Black Opalescent Birds Still Circled the Globe (Harbor Review’s Inaugural 2023 Jewish Women’s Prize); Feathered Strips of Prayer Before Morning (Minerva Rising); Cobblestone Mist (Long-listed Finalist by Harbor Editions’ Marginalia Series). Earlier Chapbook Finalists: Where Space Bends (In earlier chapbook form 2014 by both Minerva Rising & Blue Light Press.) and Under the Ice Moon (2015 Blue Light Press). She holds a Poetry MFA (Drew), Diplôme (Sorbonne, Paris), a Drawing MFA & Painting BFA (With Highest Honors / Pratt) and a Master of Divinity degree. Follow her on Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and her blog. Sign up for her newsletter.
Add to GoodReads:
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Tour Schedule:
Jan. 15: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (guest post)
Jan. 30: CelticLady’s Reviews (guest post)
Feb. 19: The Book Connection (interview)
Feb. 28: The Reading Bud (interview)
March 11: Book Dilettante (guest post)
March 18: True Book Addict (guest post)
March 26: Savvy Verse & Wit (interview)
Follow the tour #CivilTwilight
Arranging Words by Fran Abrams (Nov. – Jan. 2024)
Please join us for the winter 2023-2024 blog tour for Arranging Words by Fran Abrams, published by Quillkeepers Press in October 2023.
Book Synopsis:
Arranging Words is Abrams’ second chapbook collection. It is a series of light-hearted poems that asks the reader to look at words from a new perspective. These poems approach letters, words, and everyday phrases in a way that pokes fun at the eccentricities of the English language.
For example, her poem titled “K Knows How to Hide and Seek” begins with the line “Kknocks twice, but we only hear him once,” reminding us how often “k” is a silent letter.
The poem “Poetry Exercise” plays on the meaning of the word “exercise” with the line “Brain cells stretch, lift your arms, reach for words.” Phrases are deconstructed into literal meanings, such as in the poem “Beside Myself” that asks, “Am I myself or the one beside myself?”
This collection illuminates the quirks of the English language in a lively, humorous way while demonstrating a love for words themselves.
About the Author:
Fran Abrams lives in Rockville, MD. Her poems have been published in literary magazines online and in print and appear in more than a dozen anthologies. In July 2022, the title poem of this book, “Arranging Words,” was a finalist in the 2022 Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry. Her two previous books are: I Rode the Second Wave: A Feminist Memoir (2022) and The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras (2023). Learn more at www.franabramspoetry.com and Connect on Facebook at Fran Abrams, Poet.
Add to Goodreads:
Available on Amazon, Bookshop, and Barnes & Noble.
Blog Tour Schedule:
Nov. 27: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (Interview)
Dec. 3: Book Dilettante (guest post)
Dec. 13: Wall-to-Wall Books (review)
Jan. 9: Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
Jan. 23: The Book Connection (guest post)
Jan. 29: True Book Addict (review)
Jan. 31: Unique_bookreview (Instagram review)
Follow the blog tour #ArrangingWords
Dancehall by Tim Stobierski (July-Sept.)
Please join us for our Summer 2023 blog tour for Dancehall by Tim Stobierski, published by Antrim House in July 2023.
A queer love story in five acts, Dancehall follows the arc of a relationship from its earliest days to its final, somber conclusion.
In these 60 poems, you will join the speaker as they navigate the highs and the lows, the tranquility and the turbulence, the euphoria and the despair that comes with giving yourself fully to another.
Through language, imagery, and form at once universal and intimate, you are invited to take part in this love story – not as some distant observer, but as a central figure: The “you” to whom the speaker writes these poems.
Experienced poetry readers and poetry novices alike will enjoy the clean, simple style embodied in the majority of the poems.
Whether straight or queer, young or old, single or happily partnered, these poems are for anyone who has ever loved or longed for another.
Advance Praise:
“Tim Stobierski’s debut volume, Dancehall, captures the thrall of first real love in Sapphic poems that tumble with excitement and tumult. I rooted for the lovers, feeling as swept away as the speaker is: “Harvest me by the handful;/tear me out of the black earth.” Stobierski’s stunning imagery will have you enthralled again with the love poem and clinging with suspense while riding the affair’s arc.” – Pegi Deitz Shea, two-time winner of the Connecticut Book Award and author of The Weight of Kindling.
“Erotic, sublime, funny, and sharp, Tim Stobierski writes poems the way tango-dancers cross the floor: His confidence, mastery of language, sexual energy, and essential vitality make it impossible to turn away. You’ll read, and you’ll weep, or sigh, or laugh, or be swept off your feet by longing—grateful to be alive, but reminded of love’s price and desire’s debt. You’ll read Stobierski’s poems out loud and recite them at weddings, and you’ll remember them as you fall asleep.” –Gina Barreca, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Connecticut and author of They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted.
“Tim Stobierski’s collection, Dancehall, is in itself an ode to love, with all its passion and contradictions, gifting readers a wisdom we could only learn through a language like his, a skillful juxtaposition of love and loss, tenderness and lust. Stobierski is a master of craft, a speaker who knows how to feel, who knows that love is a journey and a puzzle. His titles intrigue, his last lines transport the reader way beyond the initial moment. Each short poem is a tender vignette that smacks of the truth of human relationships, each one a moment to be felt, tasted, savored, cold and warmth juxtaposed. In them, we feel the passion and contradictions, something between the tender and the tumultuous—something like love Tim Stobierski’s poems speak to everyone. Dancehall is a welcome reminder of poetry’s often overlooked power to awaken us to the beauty, complexity, and fragility of love, life, and the small gifts we often ignore.” –Pat Mottola, author of After Hours (Five Oaks Press)
“In these tender poems, Tim Stobierski traces the familiar yet always-wrenching arc of early love gained, then lost. And while the darlings here are queer and kissing in parking lots, this tale brings us right back to Dante’s Vita Nuova and the love lyric’s difficult task: to explore the particularities of a singular vanished beloved in language that allows its readers, its voyeurs, to feel intimately present.” –V. Penelope Pelizzon, author of Whose Flesh Is Flame, Whose Bone Is Time
“This book works like the metal teeth of a zipper, alternating exigent heartbreak with love throes. You can read it in one sitting, persisting even as its teeth catch on and scrape your skin, because it is such a pleasure ‘to remember what it is like / to be so lonely.'” –Darcie Dennigan, author of Corinna A-Maying the Apocalypse and Madame X
“At first glance, Dancehall is a title that conjures, to some, Jamaican dancehall music and the various popular dances this reggae style and vibe created. But a dancehall is also a public hall or building in which people dance, whether you call it a club, a disco, or a nightspot. Tim Stobierski’s Dancehall tells the tale of a queer love story enacted nimbly as image/word dances and flourishes on the page. The speaker in these poems invites the reader to consider the myriad ways narratives are crafted in poetic form. One is struck by the brevity Stobierski establishes with poems such as the “Apolloniad,” which calls upon Greek mythology, and one poem “Falling in love with you” that appears pirouette-like in all five “acts” of the collection. There is a lot to admire in Stobierski’s collection of poems, and it’s a gem I’ll enjoy reading again and again.” –Sean Frederick Forbes, author of Providencia, a book of poems
“In Dancehall, a love story in five acts, Stobierski selects, dissects, and presents a series of moments—ranging from the mundane to the passionate to the anguished—that, when strung together, tell the complicated story of loving someone fully. While each poem is strong on its own, the work is tied together by recurring themes, comparisons, and language that take the reader on a rollercoaster of love and loss. Both playful and hard-hitting, it’s unputdownable.” –Catherine Cote, founder of Project Empathy
“Stobierski’s Dancehall traces romantic love from its early, ingenuous encounters, when one lover can entreat the other to “speak me into being“ and the whole natural world, from the keenest flower to the ocean itself, grows more vital and fine. But Stobierski’s book, like love itself, also embraces darkness. It goes on to explore that same love lost, as the poet learns to “give praise to the shadows,” in a renewed and more reflective effort to entwine the self and the other. These poems are acutely attuned to love’s shadow and love’s light.” –David Groff, Live in Suspense
About the Poet:Tim Stobierski writes about relationships. His work explores universal themes of love, lust, longing, and loss — presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including the Connecticut River Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Grey Sparrow. His first book of poetry, Chronicles of a Bee Whisperer, was published by River Otter Press in 2012.
To pay the bills, he is a freelance writer and content strategist focused on the world of finance, investing, fintech, insurance, and software. In his professional writing, he prides himself on his ability to help the reader understand complicated subjects easily, a quality that informs his poetry.
He is also the founder and editor of Student Debt Warriors, a free resource for college students, graduates, and parents who are struggling to make sense of the complex world of student loans. Follow Tim on Instagram.
Blog Tour Schedule:
July 24: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
Aug. 17: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
Aug. 28: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)
Aug. 30: Anthony Avina’s blog (interview)
Sept. 6: Pages for Sanity (review)
Sept. 14: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)
Sept. 18: True Book Addict (review)
The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron (July-Aug. 2023)
Please join us for our Summer 2023 blog tour for The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron, published by Cathexis Northwest Press in May 2023.
Advance Praise:
“A beautiful creation of song and scar, of emotional complexity and simple witness, Louis Efron’s debut collection The Unempty Spaces Between mingles the natural and human worlds in a series of accessible, personal, universal poems. From lush to bare, the landscapes he presents us with are so intertwined with and impacted by our actions that we realize the two have always been one. Brimming with meditations deep as winter snow and boundless compassion and curiosity, these vibrant poems remain grounded in a universal familiarity that opens us up to something greater.” -John Sibley Williams, author of As One Fire Consumes Another
“Haunting, harrowing and frighteningly incisive . . . a welcome assault on the senses” -Jim Volz, PH.D
Editor, Shakespeare Theatre Association’s Quarto
” . . . a reverence for nature and personal connection that reminds us of Mary Oliver’s gorgeous nature poems.” – Karol Nielsen, author of Small Life
“This work of poetry is worthy of a good read and the time of those who enjoy serious writing.” -Emmett Wheatfall, author of Our Scarlet Blue Wounds
About the Poet:
Louis Efron is a poet and writer who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, POETiCA REViEW, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Literary Yard, New Reader Magazine and over 100 other national and global publications. He is also the author of five books, including The Unempty Spaces Between, How to Find a Job, Career and Life You Love; Purpose Meets Execution; Beyond the Ink; as well as the children’s book What Kind of Bee Can I Be?
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
July 6: Lavender Orchids (review)
July 7: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
July 20: The Book Connection (review)
July 21: BooksParlour (Instagram review)
Aug. 1: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)
Aug. 1: Celtic Lady’s Reviews (book spotlight)
Aug. 3: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
Aug. 15: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)
Aug. 16: Anthony Avina’s blog (Guest Post)
Aug. 28: True Book Addict (review)
Follow the blog tour with hashtag #UnemptySpacesBetween
Exits by Stephen C. Pollock (July-Sept. 2023)
Please join us for our Summer 2023 blog tour for Exits by Stephen C. Pollock, published by Windtree Press in June 2023.
Stephen C. Pollock’s debut collection, Exits, nods to the literary traditions of years past while simultaneously speaking to the present moment. Multilayered and musical, the poems in Pollock’s “Exits” (Windtree Press, June 29, 2023) have drawn comparisons to the work of Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney. With bold imagery, attention to form, and a consistent throughline rooted in the theme of mortality, his collection responds to contemporary anxieties surrounding death and the universal search for meaning in life’s transience.
Advance Praise:
“Full of wit, insight, and provocative imagery, Exits is a masterful collection by award-winning poet Stephen C. Pollock. Some are sonnets as artful as any by Shakespeare or Ben Jonson.” —IndieReader, 5.0 stars ★★★★★
“A unique and diverse group of harmonious poems…producing the multilayered depth that distinguishes lasting poetry.” —BookLife Reviews, EDITOR’S PICK
“Exits is an accomplished, beautifully produced poetry chapbook. Readers of contemporary poetry will find a thought-provoking work of literary merit in these pages.” —BlueInk Review
“Pollock’s poetry is brilliant. The exploration of form is thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring. Many of Pollock’s pieces are reminiscent of Irish poets like Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney.” —Kristiana Reed, Editor-in-Chief, Free Verse Revolution
About the Poet:
Stephen C. Pollock is a recipient of the Rolfe Humphries Poetry Prize and a former associate professor at Duke University. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, including “Blue Unicorn,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Live Canon Anthology,” “Pinesong,” “Coffin Bell,” and “Buddhist Poetry Review.” “Exits” is his first book.
Add to GoodReads:
Available on Amazon.
Blog Tour Schedule:
July 6: The Reading Bud (review)
July 7: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
July 10: the bookworm (review)
July 11: The Reading Bud (interview)
July 13: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)
July 18: Lavender Orchids (review)
July 20: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)
July 25: Celtic Lady’s Reviews (interview)
Aug. 7: The Book Connection (review)
Aug. 8: BooksParlour (review)
Aug. 8: True Book Addict (review)
Aug. 23: Anthony Avina (review)
Sept. 5: Anthony Avina (interview)
Follow the blog tour with hashtag #Exits
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.
Add to GoodReads:
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.
Add to GoodReads:
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.
Add to GoodReads:
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
poeticbooktours.wordpress.com 