Andrea Potos's poems are permeated by an expansive sense of kinship. Blood family are precious, but equally intimate are luminary writers with whom she finds soul connections. Although most of these figures are physically absent, all are a vital presence in Potos's "rooms of thought." She recommends (and practices) not getting snagged in appearances but "look[ing] slant" to find what is enduring. This is what she calls "graz[ing] with your consciousness" to gather joy. This is no simplistic pursuit. Rather, she's in agreement with C.S. Lewis's insight that "joy is the serious business of heaven." Potos understands that it takes committed work to choose and own joy. These poems involve aging parents, cancer, dread, death, grief, funerals-the hard times that generate hard questions. But they also celebrate the sustaining "underpinnings of dailiness"-laundry, coffee, washing dishes, brushing hair, bird song, vegetables, floral dresses. As those who are now absent become valued mental companions, she discovers "a peace whisper[ing] to her...a different happiness unfolding." The gift of these poems is in how Potos thoughtfully weighs what is given and what is taken, how life both fulfills and disappoints, and determines to let joy keep her. "Breathing deeply is simple, and hope is the natural choice."

Her Joy Becomes

Literature & Fiction

Potos, ANDREA

Poetry

Fernwood Press

The works of revered women writers, particularly the Bronte sisters, Emily Dickinson, and Sylvia Plath, have been such a lens for Andrea Potos. Her poems in this collection pursue the trail of creative genius in their lives. Potos is on intimate terms with her subjects, while journeys to their homes offer relics of their history, true marvels for a pilgrim. These vibrant, impressionistic poems are haunted by lives long past whose voices still ring clear and strong.

We Lit the Lamps Ourselves

Salmon Poetry

The poems in this collection comprise a sort of pilgrimage, luminous with ancient light and heath mist, animated by the spirits of Keats and Constable, Caravaggio and Bernini. Whether in the glory of a Roman Piazza, or in those small moments with her daughter or ailing father, Potos seeks with word and image both to exalt the mysteries of existence and cut through to those seeds of truth that give meaning to all experience. Andrea Potos is the author of five poetry collections. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her family.

An Ink Like Early Twilight

Think of a mother cupping a child’s face in her hands, and you have the shell of Mothershell, Andrea Potos’ tender and luminous new collection. Yes, these are poems of loss: her mother’s cancer and treatments, her death and the grief that follows, but these are also poems that celebrate the chord, “the unseen thread” that binds mothers and daughters forever. Potos imagines heaven as an eternal breakfast, mother and daughter drinking our coffee/black and filled to the top. Coffee without bitterness or sweet / but somewhere in the perfection / of the middle. Here are poems that celebrate the power of presence, poems of travel: Ireland, France, Italy, ekphrastic poems that illuminate paintings. In “What the Poem Did,” Potos writes It became a spine/walked me upright/ into the day, and this is what this book does, walks with each of us and sustains us in the long journey of all of our ordinary days.
Barbara Crooker, author of Some Glad Morning, and others
In this stunning, new collection by Andrea Potos, we find beautiful windows into the life of abiding love—each poem steeped in elegant imagery and story. A simple moment of sharing eggs over-easy with her mother, or witnessing her daughter’s essence igniting in the Italian light, is all we need, to know the deep connection this poet has to others. Potos offers up these poems as prayer and healing. This collection is a love letter to memory, hope, and presence. She brings memories to life so vividly, that we, too, can hear her mother’s voice through glittering veins of stone. Gentle in their touch, these beautifully sculpted poems pay tribute to the quiet strength needed for the loss you know is coming and the spaces left behind. 
Cristina M. R. Norcross, editor of Blue Heron Review; author of Beauty in the Broken Places, Amnesia and Awakenings, and others
In Mothershell, Andrea Potos uses light and color and sound as expertly as she did in her recent chapbook, Arrows of Light. In this new collection, visual and tactile arts expand metaphors even further, weaving rich phrases such as all of them spun and still spinning / with filaments of unstoppable light into a glorious, whole cloth that not only honors memories but recreates tangible moments with her mother and other loved ones. Potos explores relationships in deftly conveyed, universal allegories that touch our innermost understanding. As so aptly expressed in “Writing My Mother,” Potos does her writing on the top of light, her hands passing / across brightness and slanting shadows. Every bit of light and shadow in Mothershell reflects a gifted writer’s heart and mind.
C. Ann Kodra, author of Under an Adirondack Moon

Mothershell

Literary

Kelsay Books

These poems come to us like crusts of blessed bread, small moments of communion with the world. I love this book. Andrea Potos brings whimsy, wonder, and a willingness to be wrestled by life's challenges. And in every poem, she shows us how to be resilient, how to lean into essential gratitude, how to converse with color, with art, with other poets, with our heritage, with our self. Marrow of Summer leaves in us a wake of goodness, a certainty that we are deeply connected.-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Author of Hush and Naked for TeaIn this fleeting world of joy and sorrow, these startlingly lovely poems by Andrea Potos are salutary, like taking a quick, deep, clarifying breath. If only one could ever have by one's side such a poet-a wise poet who, despite the darkest odds, reminds us to never even consider choosing anything other than hope. This is a summer book to keep in one's proverbial winter coat. -Richard Jones, Editor of Poetry EastReading the poems in Andrea Potos' new collection, Marrow of Summer, I was reminded of kotodama, the Japanese belief that deep mystical powers can dwell in words. How else to explain the draw of Potos' compact, prayerful, and fresh-sighted poems? With her trademark optimism and hope, she invites us in this new collection to create the place from where your beloveds may soar, so that we too might soar right along with her, into the heart of everyday life made more miraculous by the force of these carefully chosen words.-James Crews, Editor of How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope

Marrow of Summer