A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm

by Melanie Green

Tentative Release Date: November 5, 2019

The poems in A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm are an invitation to slow down, to rest deep into quiet and the contemplative. Melanie Green’s poetry explores the connection with the numinous—as well as speaking to the difficulty of living with a chronic illness.

“Haiku-like in their intensity of language, Zen-like in their meditative quality, these lyrical poems invite us to pause, catch our breaths, and marvel at a poet who invites us to Feel/ the psalm/ of lingering/ calm/ in afternoon’s/ echo of light.”

—Carolyn Martin, author of The Way a Woman Knows and A Penchant for Masquerades

“A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm is a wise, generous, expertly crafted volume of poems that reminds us how even in the deep/ arabesque/ of night, in the bearable/ dark, we might yet walk/ out of the house of worry into a place where solitude is cherished and heaven is within.”

—Tim Applegate, author of Blueprints and At the End of Day

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Most Beautiful

by Elizabeth S.E. McBride
with artwork by Connie Cronenwett

Tentative Release Date: November 5, 2019

A collection of poems, prose, and paintings inspired by the village of Glen Arbor, Michigan and the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, voted “Most Beautiful Place in America” in 2011.

It’s not always easy to slow down, unplug, and take notice of the gifts nature offers. Elizabeth McBride’s poetry and prose invites you to bear witness to the wonder of that which surrounds us. Whether you enjoy this book right where you are, or bring it with you to take your own poetic tour of the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore and  its surrounding regions, you can match the cited locations to the poems and prose they  inspired, and experience what is here, what was here before you, and what is changing right beneath your feet and overhead. Let the artwork and verse herein, whet your appetite for discovery, as you venture into this place “Most Beautiful!”

“McBride takes us on a glorious tour of the area: to the farms of Port Oneida, to the little town of Empire, to the vistas of Pierce Stocking Drive and the thrill of Pyramid Point and its shipwrecks.”

~ Betsy Wagner, Glen Arbor Arts Center Artist-in-Residence Program

“In her luminous work, Elizabeth McBride’s elegant and earthbound writing creates that uncommon experience only a fine artist can give us.”

~ Jack Ridl, author of Practicing to Walk Like a Heron and Saint Peter and the Goldfinch

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The Very Rich Hours

by Gregory Loselle

Tentative Release Date: October 22, 2019

In The Very Rich Hours, Gregory Loselle recounts experiences, in childhood and later, in and around his grandparents’ house on Grosse Ile, Michigan, an island in the Detroit River near the mouth of Lake Erie. Loselle’s mastery of various poetic forms parallels the way in which memory is a formal reconstruction of events.

Take a walk down memory lane and open the door to a houseful of stories, from watching Grandpa shave to sifting through a crateful of old photographs that “call us to forgotten places” and remind us “what we were and meant to do” in the very rich hours of our lives.

With a haunting and contemplative voice, Loselle employs rhythm, word-play, and richness of language line after line. Through rhyme, narrative constructs, and repetition, he crafts poems that are admirably controlled and precise, and reminds us that what William Carlos Williams writes is true: “A poem is a… machine made out of words.” Loselle’s beautifully spun poems continue to reverberate long after the last light’s been switched off.

— Janée J. Baugher, author of The Body’s Physics and Coördinates of Yes

Gregory Loselle’s poems offer memory illuminated by a remarkable astuteness and strong craft. In his hand, the quotidian becomes extraordinary, uncommon, and wonderful. The poet investigates with an unrelenting intelligence and an astonishing clarity.

 —James Najarian, author of The Goat Songs

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Mary Dyer’s Hymn and Other Quaker Poems

by Stanford Searl

Tentative Release Date: October 22, 2019

Mary Dyer’s Hymn and other Quaker Poems, constructs poetic songs which open-up multiple dimensions of an embodied sensibility of the conflicts between Puritans and Quakers in 17^th century Massachusetts.

“Stanford Searl at his strongest, blending the themes of space, place, and memory, with the theme of Mary Dyer’s martyrdom, part of his faith heritage. This is a collection that for all the Quaker silent prayer is musical and melodic.”

~ Ben Pink Dandelion, Professor of Quaker Studies, Woodbrooke

“The compelling narrative contained in this delicate collection leaves me buoyed up and inspired by the joy and certitude to which these early Friends gave witness. I am already in Paradise.”

~ Deborah L. Shaw, Recorded Minister, Director Emeritus: Guilford College’s Quaker Leadership Scholars Program

“Are we willing, like Dyer, Leddra, Stephenson, and Robinson, to face the ultimate sacrifice for a good greater than ourselves? Or are we fated, as poet James Russell Lowell once penned, to see Truth forever on the scaffold, / Wrong forever on the throne? Searl not only asks the important question; he provides inspiring words for those who would learn from history.”

~ Max L. Carter, William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies at Guilford College (emeritus)

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The Dichotomy Between Light & Dark

by Michael B. Carroll Jr.

Tentative Release Date: August 1, 2019

Deeply rooted in the human experience, these poems dare to ask how we strive to see the light in other people and in ourselves, despite a world in turmoil—this dichotomy between light and dark.

“Never before have I been so taken by onomatopoeia—do not simply read this collection, but instead listen.

— C. M. Tollefson, Cathexis Northwest Press

“As if Coltrane and Marcus Aurelius shared their secrets, Carroll’s meditations express free and bold cathartic verse.”

— Samuel Griffin, founder, The Esthetic Apostle

“This marvelous collection navigates the desires of humanity with rhythm, repetition, and grace, demonstrating an ambitious orchestration of form on the page.”

— J. David, poetry editor for Flypaper Magazine

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Like the O in Hope

by Jeanne Julian

Tentative Release Date: August 1, 2019

The poems in Like the O in Hope take the reader on a journey, a quest from dark to light—both literally and spiritually, where revelations about the magic of place and of connection lead to contentment and even enlightenment.

“Julian knows that no extended meditation on what brings light to our lives would be complete without the lighter side of life, humor and laughter. I look forward to returning to these poems. Shine on, Julian!”

—Malaika King Albrecht, author of What the Trapeze Artist Trusts;
founding editor, Redheaded Stepchild

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Abruptio

by Melissa Fournier

Tentative Release Date: July 15, 2019

A mother’s worst fear is realized at 23 weeks into the pregnancy, and a baby girl is born at the edge of viability. Melissa Fournier shares her profound grief for her daughter’s brief life in these intimate poems that reflect the power of grace to transform sorrow into resilience and hope.

“This extraordinary collection of images, as spare as Japanese paintings, gives the reader a sensation of being in the poems and artfully conveys, not only what is in a scene but what is tragically absent; we fully realize what is kept and what has been taken away. With her sensual language, this poet has an astonishing ability to elicit the ache of grief, her skill with metaphor leading us to understand what is inherently incomprehensible.”

~ Joanna White, poet and music professor

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