by Donna Emerson (Author)
This poetry collection by an expert story teller captures ordinary or unexpected encounters between people, between human beings and animals. between generations, especially mothers and daughters, places where frenzy meets solitude, health meets illness, where rural landscapes meet modern California and New York, where modern love meets modern death. Here readers can recognize themselves in the significant meetings of our lives. Comfort and beauty rise from the tender portraits, hard truths told without bitterness, peace and beauty in the way the land comes alive. Other poets review this collection as "sensual, tender, of this earth." Molly Peacock calls Ms. Emerson "a new American pastoralist." Five award-winning poems are included in this book: "Beside Salmon Creek" (Healdsburg quarterly award, 2015); "First Day of Kindergarten and Eleven Years Later," (Allen Ginsberg Contest, 2015); "Following Hay," (Redwood Writers 2010); "Before AIDS Was a Word," (Nominations for Pushcart, Best of Net, Gemini Magazine, 2012, 2013); "Edna's Baked Goods," (Western regional award, Persimmon Tree, Maria Gillan, judge, 2014).