Between States of Matter

by Sherry Rind

Scheduled Release Date: March 31, 2020

Nothing stays at rest, writes Sherry Rind, and, indeed, these are restless poems—probing, examining, taking nothing for granted—by a poet who is not fooled by easy appearances. There is an edge to Rind that has been honed on the worn stone of experience, the relentless strop of memory. Still, she finds solace in the adaptability of wild animals, insects, birds, the fierce allegiance of dogs and the tenacity of plants. She is, finally, a poet of hope, one who has been able to, as Wendell Berry says, Be joyful/ though you have considered all the facts.

~Samuel Green
Inaugural Poet Laureate, Washington State

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Staring Down the Tracks

by Julia Paul

Scheduled Release Date: March 15, 2020

Staring Down the Tracks is a collection of poems that gives voice to those affected by addiction, a population that, despite their numbers and diverse demographics, is often harshly judged and silenced by shame. The mother and son of these poems are your neighbors, friends, relatives, and co-workers who need to have a dialog with you

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“Images precise and severe are accompanied by a fragile, defiantly beautiful music as the poet describes the son whom she will lose, over and over again.”

~Erica Funkhouser, author of Post & Rail, winner of the Idaho Prize for Poetry

 

“…a courageous and generous collection, an essential contribution to literature about addiction that will change you.”

~Daniel Donaghy, author, Somerset: Start with the Trouble,
winner of the Paterson Prize for Literary Excellence

 

“If Sylvia Plath were the mother of an addict, she would write poems like [these].”

~Miriam Greenspan, psychotherapist and author,
Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair.

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The Widow at the Piano

by Sue Fagalde Lick

Scheduled Release Date: March 15, 2020

The aging woman playing the piano at church may look saintly, but her mind is busy wondering things like what’s under the priest’s robes and why Jesus didn’t invite the women to join him. Also, when someone faints in the Communion line, should she keep playing? All the while, she is playing, singing, and directing the choir, hoping that she’s on the same verse as everyone else. The Widow at the Piano takes readers on a journey through the distracted mind of the music minister who has recently lost her husband to Alzheimer’s disease and whose only nearby family is the church family at Sacred Heart Church in Newport, Oregon. These poems look at the challenges of leading small church choirs, traditional vs. modern church music, the role of women ministers in the male-dominated Catholic Church, faith vs. practical concerns, and life behind the scenes at Mass, with an honest blend of reverence and irreverence from a writer who has always felt not quite Catholic enough.

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“Reminiscent of Jan Karon’s Mitford Series, this collection of poetry highlights the goodness and foibles of a committed woman of faith with humor and steadfastness.”

~Rachel Barton, editor, Willawaw Journal

“Sassy, yearning, and bittersweet, Sue Fagalde Lick’s oh-so-human conversations with God and with herself—part prayer, part challenge, part confession–offer a refreshing new take on the theme of the spiritual quest.”

~Ingrid Wendt, Oregon Book Award recipient,, author of Evensong

“Her dog has to pee, her pantyhose are migrating, and Jesus might be trying to sell her a vacuum cleaner. Lick’s strength as a poet comes from her courageous honesty and her ability to go from raw emotion to the perfect funny detail on a dime.”

~Nancy Vieira Couto, poetry editor of Epoch,, two-time NEA fellowship recipient

“A touch of humor, a touch of grief. A touch of bawdy, a touch of intimate. A touch of religious, a touch of reverent. Put all of these together and you get one wonderful and satisfying read.”

~Kathie Giorgio, author, If You Tame Me

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Matrimony

by Laurel Feigenbaum

Scheduled Release Date: Feb 18, 2020

Matrimony is the story of a long marriage, a family, and the inevitable changes that occur over time. Married for 66 years when her husband passed away, the poet shares her journey of learning to live alone for the first time, her grief, and recognition of the natural aging process as it affects us all.

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“Matrimony’s gorgeous elegy to a husband casts a tender and unflinching eye into aging, illness, and love’s ‘armory of memory.’ These poems speak to the natural absolute of death with Yeatsian candor, but they also remind me of contemporary masters of the short form—Jane Kenyon and Jean Valentine—in their precision. Feigenbaum’s accuracy also calls to mind the photographer Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moment,’ in which spontaneous and ephemeral events record, in one deft impress, the essence of pure feeling. I’m so grateful to these poems for lessons in how to write, and, more importantly, how to live.”

~ Jane Miller, acclaimed poet & author of Who is Trixie the Trasher? and Other Questions

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Moroccan Holiday

by Lauren Tivey

The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2019
1stPlace Winner

Scheduled Release Date: Jan 21, 2020

Moroccan Holiday is a poetic series following a married couple—an American woman, and her Scottish husband—on an extended vacation in Morocco. As the husband suffers an extreme alcoholic relapse, the couple confronts longstanding issues of disease, abuse, and painful family memories, against the rich backdrop of an unfamiliar culture.

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Judge’s Comments:

“Lauren Tivey embarks on a trip to Morocco, a foreign landscape of exciting people, smells, and destinations, with her alcoholic husband. She carries with her a dread of what she may face with her husband’s disease in a Muslim country. In beautifully-executed and moving poetic forms, she takes the reader with her through the landscapes of Ramadan and his alcoholism, family histories with drunkenness and rehab, and her moments of stillness when she is alone with mint tea and her journal. We feel how hard it is to stuff love, fear, and compassion in a suitcase just to unpack again in a new port of call.”

~ Tricia Knoll, Contest Judge, 2019
author of How I Learned to Be White and Broadfork Farm

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Hello, Darling

by Christine Higgins

The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2019
2nd Place Winner

Scheduled Release Date: Jan 21, 2020

Hello, Darling explores the relationship of a mother with her daughter struggling with mental health. Christine Higgins shares both the joy and the complexity of childrearing, while paying tribute to an exuberant and creative child. Motherhood doesn’t end, but it does change when the daughter dies at the age of seventeen. These poems explore the grief of both parents and what it takes to heal from within that grief.  In Hello, Darling, Higgins gives voice to sorrow while holding fast to the love that is essential.

 

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I read Hello, Darling with my whole heart and soul. Poet Christine Higgins is a mother who suffers the unimaginable grief of losing her daughter. In poem after poem, in myriad forms, she composes a song that has everything in it—her daughter’s birth, her life, and her life after…. I read it again and again because I wanted to be beside these poems, to feel their tenderness, their hope, and their deep love.

­~Kendra Kopelke, Hopper’s Women

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