THE GOSPEL OF GALORE, Tina Kelley's first collection, is at once exuberant and intellectual, its reverence for the world's physical beauty and joy underpinned by rigorous knowledge about the world's creatures and creations. Curiosities abound in her work, and entice the reader's deeper curiosity as well, from the visual to the intellectual to, ultimately, the spiritual plane.

The Gospel of Galore

Literature & Fiction

Kelley, Tina

Poetry

Word Poetry

The poems of CLAY COUNTY PASTORAL by Steve Tompkins are tough in their tone but tender in their touch, gently evoking tales of hardscrabble living and idyllic scenes. Writes Juan J. Morales: "In his debut collection, Steve Tompkins assembles a vivid map of family legacy, war, PTSD, and childhood woven together with a zen wisdom that dots the poetic landscape. This amazing collection is filled with ferocious and tender moments that invite readers to get their hands dirty fishing the muddy rivers, to wander the pastoral fields of Missouri, and to sample the food toiled from the land. A powerful debut from a talented, emerging American poet." Adds David Keplinger: "Steve Tompkins begins his debut collection with a question for the heart: Are you willing to put your hand into the mouth of the unknown, ready and able to face the consequences of a vulnerable life? In this accomplished volume of poetry, Tompkins says yes to the 'whiskerfish' lurking in the dark pools of consciousness, a treasure that is ours to claim. With immense tenderness and intelligence, Tompkins crafts a collection within the poetic lineage of Robert Frost, Richard Hugo, and William Stafford - this is hard, stark, even haunting work, nevertheless suffused with musicality and pathos. His dialogues with the figure of Clayton Parker, notably his final elegy sequence, deserve to be set beside some of the best narrative poetry being written today."

Clay County Pastoral

Tompkins, Steve

Whit Grace is Anne Shivas's first collection and comes after years of work in Scotland, Vermont and Israel. Her poems explore culture, landscape and identity in each of these places, from the Scottish coast, to the hills and villages around Jerusalem, and the dramatic seasonal shifts in rural Vermont. The poems are often playful in form and in their use of language but also explore the weight and heft of words, especially the poet's own Scots tongue, and the magic of naming things. Using the Doric vocabulary of the North-east of Scotland, the title poem An Wi Whit Grace addresses the issue of identity asking "Scottish child, / div ye ken yer place / in the universe? / Faar's hame?" Whit Grace explores universal themes of kin, loss, displacement, praise, and spirit. It is a searching meditation on what constitutes one's home and an affirmation of our commonality on different shores. It celebrates the natural world within and without, and its restorative solace.

Whit Grace

Shivas, Anne

This bold collection catches a watchful eye and misses nothing with its gaze.

Beholder

Abrams-Morley, Liz

one inch punch is a collection of poems responding to the call of ancestors and our own broken bodies, spirits and earth. Each poem offering flows from gut, muscle, and memory into fingertips to strike from the closest distance between "us" and "them," reminding us that beyond each rise to action we must remain rooted in love.

one inch punch

Biala, Arlene

In My Feelins is both a bracingly candid memoir-in-verse and a chronicle of societal change and controversy in the Obama years. The poems careen from race, sexuality, and family life to immigration, gender roles, and gun violence, but what is notably less itinerant is the voice. That voice-whether deployed as conveyance for weighty considerations of behavioral determinism, or for the poetic exposition of an attraction-is a constant, and is undeniably permeated by Christianity and the influence of the Black church.

In My Feelins

Tillman, Cedric

In Crossing State Lines, Joseph Chelius explores the themes of travel, moving from boyhood to fatherhood while stopping along the way to examine the illuminating moments of daily life that keep us connected to our loved ones?at every stage of life.

Crossing State Lines

Chelius, Joseph

In this collection of poems that explore form and freedom, written over a period of sixty years, Mary Swope traces the trajectory of a life. With a painterly eye and an ear for the music of language, her poems celebrate the joys, pleasures and sorrows of the natural world and puzzle over the complexities of human relationships, both to one another and to the Earth, the planet on which our lives depend.

Phosphorescence

Swope, Mary Carlton

Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios delves deeply into the subject of living with an abusive Finnish mother during a time of youthful exuberance. Her narrative and lyric style reflects the moods and colors of this extraordinary experience and her resolve in utilizing her Sisu to overcome.

Empty the Ocean with a Thimble: Living with Sisu

Kirkpatrick-Vrenios, Elizabeth

This is a collection of poems about life-its imperfect beauty, its poignance, and the forces that propel it forward.

Buy a Ticket: New and Selected Poems

Robinson, Judith R.

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Books by Word Poetry