Once A World, by Yvette Nelson, is the first individual-author book published by the Laurel Poetry Collective of the Twin Cities. Nelson's spare and quietly profound poems reveal her spiritual core; they are anchored in images of Midwest prairie landscape, long winters and wildlife. They reflect the wisdom of a studious mind, and a soul trained in spiritual practice.

Once a World

Yvette Nelson

Laurel Poetry Collective

Gate

Literature & Fiction

Ilze Klavina Mueller

Poetry

The poems in Ann Iverson's first book, Come Now to the Window, span eight years, during which she passes from young adulthood to middle age. She invites us to join her as she looks through the windows of old companionship and aging and dying parents to the world beyond. Her steady and faithful observations offer insights that belie her age. Iverson's sensibilities from experimenting in the visual arts are evident in her clear, unusual imagery. She salvages from the wreckages of love and loss, and we can't help but smile with her when she offers witty musings on the world.

Come Now to the Window

Ann Iverson

Susanna Styve's first book of poetry, Miscellaneous, Tender, invites us into the private, sometimes lonely, world of an only child, offering comfort to those who grew up as only children, and challenging others to plunge down the rabbit hole of surprise. Styve's prose poems create a fast-moving narrative, ranging from the serious to the light-hearted. The book moves lightly with wit and wry humor.

Miscellaneous, Tender

Susanna Styve

Burning

Teresa Boyer

Health, Fitness & Dieting

An imagistic, lyrical poet, Pam Wynn skillfully leads us down the spiritual path that she frequents.  Through her poetry, she boldly challenges the assumptions of our American culture, particularly our treatment of the homeless and the mentally ill. After reading Wynn's book, you will be surprised to discover that she has inspired you to examine your deepest existential and religious questions.

Diamonds on the Back of a Snake: Poems

Wynn, Pam

Junge’s book takes its title Pilgrim Eye from a poem about American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. Though she writes from daily life--whatever crosses the path from her Eden Prairie home--many of her poems work their way into art with startling results. We are the recipients of Junge’s tender, poignant answers, open to uncertainty but flowering with breath-taking suddenness.

Pilgrim Eye

Mary Junge

The poems "between the houses" by Margot Fortunato Galt describe dreamlike, surreal spaces in her Twin Cities neighborhood, inspired by Delor Erickson's paintings. These poems run like a motif through the book, suggesting the play between dream and reality, families and regions, travel and home, art and life.

Between the Houses

Galt, Margot Fortunato

In spare, lyric form, this author shares her love equally between the beautiful and the common. She writes of the natural world with an attention to detail that occasionally becomes surrealistic. The blurring of humans, inanimate objects, and animals is common in Walden’s work, where the primary difference seems to be that humans are able to reflect on mortality. In the tradition of William Carlos Williams, she finds an endless source for writing poetry in the world of visual art. Her special fondness for Native American and Inuit art stems from seeing an [Inuit] image of a smiling snowy owl in a gallery window years ago. Her brief, breathtaking poems leave the reader with the sensual fullness of having viewed enchanting works of art in a museum.

In The Tent Called Amazement

Walden, Nancy

History & Criticism

Weight of Light is precise and questioning. Smallen's attention to the smallest details reveals deep passion behind her quiet watchfulness. The wisdom resulting from Smallen’s practiced sight is perhaps what makes this book so compelling. Each poem is a microcosm of a larger truth. In Smallen’s search for meaning we see that everything in the universe moves—even the inanimate and the dead. Algebra, physics, dance, spirituality, and art are all included, and behind these subjects, a clock is ticking. Remarkably, there is peacefulness in her acceptance of the transitory world—even in her knowledge of the inevitability of grief.

Weight Of Light

Smallen, Su

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Books by Laurel Poetry Collective