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Praise this Place
“The way the body tethers us to the earth”
“Mouthbrooders, by Amy Nawrocki, is a collection of contemplative poems, an exploration of the relationship between the creature self and the life of the mind.”
Read the entire review at Necromancy Never Pays, Jeanne Griggs’s blog about all things literary. I’m grateful to her for her review.
Like the speaker looking for her reading glasses in “Hourglasses,” readers of Nawrocki’s volume are glad for the reassurance that “there is no failure/in blinking yourself into clarity.”
Jeanne Griggs
Jeanne Griggs is a reader, writer, traveler, and ailurophile. She directs the writing center at Kenyon College and plays violin in the Knox County Symphony. Check out her new collection Postcard Poems, available from Broadstone Books.
In Postcard Poems, Jeanne Griggs presents a family travel album. These vacation notes take us to iconic destinations, out-of-the-way downtowns, beach rentals, bookstores, art museums, and two-star motels. We hear the voice of a speaker longing to taste stale Cheerios and sip hot tea, watch the children wade in the surf, and make the distances between long ago and yesterday a little more tolerable. Griggs crafts a quiet cadence of absence to say: “Here I am now, missing you.” In the end, this collection helps the traveler in all of us realize that we are never “just visiting.” We piece together the narrative of our life’s travels one postcard at a time.
—Amy Nawrocki, author of Mouthbrooders & The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory
uprooted
Wanting to be seeded
into the perennial world, the poet
seeks the counsel of tiger lilies.
from Mouthbrooders
This may sound easy. It isn’t.
“A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses [her] feeling through words. This may sound easy. It isn’t.”
E.E. Cummings (or e.e. cummings as he preferred) wrote this advice to a young poet, and my poetry teacher shared it with me when I first started writing. After 27 years, it’s still not easy, but I can’t stop, and starting next week, I will write one poem a day for 30 days.
I’ll be participating in Tupelo Press’s 30/30 project, and joining over 175 poets who’ve committed to writing 30 poems in 30 days. Four poets will join me for March, and I’m excited to get started.
We’re all inviting family, friends, and colleagues to sponsor us. It’s not a competition, but we’re all raising money for Tupelo Press, one of the best independent publishers in the country, and a great supporter of poetry. But I need a little more than a retweet or Facebook Like. Support my efforts with a donation.
https://tupelopress.networkforgood.com/projects/47224-amy-nawrocki-s-fundraiser
By sponsoring my 30/30 efforts, you will send me vital encouragement and help the Tupelo Press continue to put more poets into print. Here’s why it matters:
- Independent literary publishers are mission-driven—they focus on publishing literature.
- Independent literary publishers provide access to the voices of entire communities.
- Independent literary publishers produce over 98% of poetry being published each year, and the majority of literature in translation and works of fiction by emerging writers.
Your sponsorship can be at any level; no amount is too small or insignificant.
- For a donation of $10, I’ll send you a personized origami box, designed with one of my poems.
- For $15, I’ll dedicate a poem to you.
- If you can support me with $30 (just $1/day), I’ll send you a signed copy of either Four Blue Eggs or Reconnaissance.
- For a donation of $60 (2 dollars a day), I’ll send you a signed copy The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory before its April 10 release date.
- Customize your donation. Birthday coming up? Need a wedding poem? New baby coming? Retirement? I’m in.
Tupelo Press is a prestigious non-profit press, for seventeen years their mission has been to publish new voices. They are giving my work some exposure, which is sometimes hard to come by.
“If,” continued cummings, “at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.”
I’m very lucky indeed to have had such great support throughout my writing career. Keep it going and kick off March with me. I’ll post my first poem in just over a week. Follow my progress.
My very best,
Amy Nawrocki
One poem a day . . . for 30 days
I’m excited to be part of Tupelo Press’s 30/30 project. I will be joining 173 poets who committed to this daily practice of shaping words on the page. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I look forward to pushing myself. I start March 1st.
If you write or read or just want to try to make the world a better place through art, please support my efforts. Fundraising supports Tupelo Press and helps me stay motivated. Writers need readers: make poetry a part of your March.
Escaping the hook
I’m looking forward to an upcoming post-Christmas family reunion. Here is one of my favorite poems from Potato Eaters, my first chapbook from Finishing Line Press. The photo, too, is one of my favorites, found in an attic box years ago. That’s my mother, on the right, and two of her brothers on the left.
Click the yellow BUY NOW button found at the bottom of the page (or this link) to order a signed copy.
Fishing with My Brother
My brother, who is prone to nosebleeds
hasn’t the efficiency to heal wounds;
on his left arm burn marks permanently
blister. His chin bears the scar of the second
fall on the steep hill below the house.
You can’t get any better than that
he says, pushing the fishing line
into my face. Of all the fish ever
to swim in this pond or that, this
one decides to end life on a hook,
its flesh torn and gaping. We
could take a lesson, learn when to give
up, when to know enough is enough.
He throws the fish back. How did he become
so elemental? How did he know
the average heart cannot drown
itself too deep, forgetting its purpose?
I want to tell him walk a bit with me
and we’ll cry to the birds who nest by us
in the fairy tale. He’ll listen, I hope.
I can’t wait to see him plant fields, discover
electricity, and cut a strong path
through jungles. But there will be time for that.
Nine times out of ten, it is speed
that breaks us; we grow too fast
trying to fly, or escape the hook.
Back on the Vine
Thanks to Voices of Poetry and Hopkins Vineyard for hosting “Back on the Vine” poetry reading and music event at the beautiful vineyard in Warren, CT. The wine was great, and the poetry was even better, spoken and sung. Readers included David K. Leff, me, Charlie Bondhus, Melissa Tuckey, with music by Carol Leven and Nick Moran.
Please support us and all artists, writers, musicians who do what we do because we love it. Buy books and CDs, come back to our readings, follow us on Facebook, sign up for our classes, share wine with us at your local poetry watering hole (which essentially means anywhere).
Riverwood Poetry Series
I had the pleasure of reading at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford yesterday, May 15, for the Riverwood Poetry Series. Joining me was poet Jasmine Dreame Wagner. It was so great to meet her and get to know her work. Both of us were invited and introduced by my good friend, David K. Leff, host of of the evening’s events.
Coastal Connecticut Magazine Online
Coastal Connecticut Magazine‘s latest edition is now available. Check out the online Art section, which showcases a number of poems including four of mine. You’ll also find poetry by David K. Leff, L.M. Browning, Leslie McGrath, Maelina Frattaroli, and Joanne DiMartino. Check out the whole edition at your local bookseller, subscribe, and read!!.
Release of Reconnaissance–One month away!
Order my latest poetry collection Reconnaissance ahead of the release date and get advanced shipping from Homebound Publications. Official release is scheduled for April 7th.
Here’s a teaser: This “reproduction” was made in 6th grade. Pretty good for an up-and-coming art thief. Order your copy of Reconnaissance and see how the painting finds its way into the collection. 
Amy Nawrocki 