In this collection of late works by Lynn Strongin, we find that perfect balance of salt and water spiced with symbolism and metaphor that poet Strongin does so well. Jewish Temple offerings included salt and Jewish people still dip their bread in salt on the Sabbath as a remembrance of those sacrifices.

Dark Salt: A Brush With Genius

Literature & Fiction

Strongin, Lynn

Poetry

JB Stillwater Publishing

Poet Matt Pasca explores how personal suffering can be transformed into grace, as if through alchemy, when that grief can be shared with others. Using the Buddhist “Mustard Seed” parable as scaffolding, Pasca’s work pays homage to Kisa Gotami’s quest to save her son by finding a home where, impossibly, no suffering has befallen the inhabitants. Pasca’s poems manuever deftly between the seemingly simple and mundane details of the world around us and the sublime world we often miss in the myopia of our pain. Just as Gotami comes to see her grief reflected in the eyes behind the doors upon which she desperately knocks, we too find our own sorrows and pleasures illumined by the light of Pasca’s unflinching exploration and delicate crafting. In the end, A Thousand Doors testifies to the necessity of sharing our stories with courage and vulnerability, and how doing so can lead us further down the path of joy.

A Thousand Doors

Pasca, Matt

<p>In this neat and intelligent book of poetry "Something Like Life" author Barbara Novack describes the often subliminal messages that are sent to us every day in the beauty and sadness we often see around us in nature and human experience. This book is poetry at its best.</p>

Something Like Life

Novack, Barbara

In the pages that follow, Muuss brings us close to what we might describe as the secret war, the intimate war, which resides in closed rooms, in seemingly ordinary homes. Yet these poems are written, reader, with such delicacy, such concern for image, for pause, and purpose-for, in fact, beauty. Yes, these poems and prose pieces turn on the beauty of poetry, of what art can accomplish. I bid you open the book. It is a miracle. -- Veronica Golos

Over Exposed

Muuss, Terri

<p>"All I Can Gather &amp; Give" is a book of seventy-five poems by Patti Tana that is composed of three sections: "The Ally You Have Chosen," "Imperfect Circles," and "Every Season Has Its Beauty." This ninth collection of poems is a tribute to the poet's sources of inspiration in nature and the people she loves. In a voice intimate and accessible, Tana finds words to transcend adversity and affirm a life that is passionately lived.</p>

All I Can Gather & Give

Tana, Patti