Tag: David K Leff

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When do you rest?

from “What I Forgot to Ask”

My latest collection, Mouthbrooders, is set for an official release on June 10. Order now from Homebound Publications and use  INDIESTRONG when you check out to receive 20% off on your entire order.

During six months of vocal cord paralysis, author and professor Amy Nawrocki turned to the written word and fell in love with language again. The result of this exploration is her stunning collection Mouthbrooders, full of sounds and their echoes—ravens screeching, eggs cracking, and acorns falling. As Nawrocki struggles to find her own voice again, she midwives the voices of catastrophe, of memory, and of the small miracles of everyday life.

Mouthbrooders, published by Homebound Publications

“With language that freshens and lends intrigue to the familiar, Amy Nawrocki makes a sacrament of life’s ordinary rituals from gardening to shoveling snow to waiting at the DMV. Whether it’s a walk in the woods, a meal, or the travails of illness, readers are in the moment with her. I delight in worlds with ‘lollipops that suck away loneliness,’ where a woman is ‘foraging for her lover’s shoulder,’ and there’s a ‘taxidermy of goodbyes.’ I want to linger and read again.”

–David K. Leff, author of The Breach and Terranexus

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New Release

Just released, the first episode of The Vanguard Podcast featuring writers David K. Leff, Katherine Hauswirth, and me, along with musician Lys Guillorn. Join these conversations at the Forefront of Creativity with hosts L.M. Browning and Kelly Kancyr.

See also The Vanguard Podcast to subscribe (or listen on iTunes, YouTube, and more).

This episode includes a conversation between me and L.M Browning about my poetry, teaching, my inspiration for writing, and finding my way into prose. My essay “Giving Up the Choke Hold” is a tangent to The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory, so I’m excited the podcast is available now. Both start at about the 19-minute mark.

Here’s a poem from Reconnaissance to celebrate The Vanguard Podcast’s release.

Birdsongs

Having forgotten
what a line looks like
on a page, I unwrap
a notebook and tune
to Charlie Parker. If I Should
Lose You, wait for the record,
metal now and shiny,
to hiccup into
its grooves. Scattered
over an unseen stave of five
parallel lines, the blue
narcotic notes from
a saxophone scatter
like debris
in a wind tunnel.

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“It would be easier . . . “

Here’s a poem that appeared in Reconnaissance, published by Homebound Publications in 2015.

Long Shot

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.      ~Eudora Welty

The dilemma is not
about choosing between
architecture or faces,
panorama or close-up,
indirect light or flash

but between
the print’s future frame
and the quiet immobility
of reflection—of just sitting
and being, not worrying
about whether any of this
will be preserved digitally
and remembered in twelve
or thirteen years. Chances are,

tomorrow I will struggle
with recreating the bird
swaggering near my feet. Maybe
in some somnambulant day dream,
I’ll re-see these tiny
daisy-like weeds and hear
the passersby crunch gravel
under lazy sneakers. I might
be able to gather pieces
of foil and flattened cigarettes
from a mind cluttered
with fading poppies
and the leaves of a tree
I cannot name
blowing in a breeze.

It would be easier
if I didn’t love
every single pigeon, this one
with his spooky eyes and orange beak—
a single brushstroke
of white and teal beneath his neck,DSC_0294

and if the fence’s shadow
wasn’t so dappled and transient,
if acorns would stop falling
mid-distance between dawn
and dusk, long enough
to preserve their posts
in my mind. If forgoing
the shot and closing my eyes
would be enough to argue against

some future self
who will be too old or sad
or something worse
to remember this.

Check out these other great titles from Homebound Publications including new fiction by L.M. Browning  and Eric D. Lehman, poetry by Andrew Jarvis and James Scott Smith, illustrated children’s literature by Elizabeth Slayton, and nonfiction by David K. Leff.  Add Four Blue Eggs and Wildness: Voices of the Sacred Landscape to your book bag and you’ll be set (for a while)! Support independent publishers and writers who want to make a difference in the world. Save 20% and receive free shipping on orders over $35.00 with coupon code: SUMMERREADING20.

 

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Wildness: Voices in the Sacred Landscape

Check out this great new anthology. In celebration of the 5th anniversary of its founding, Homebound Publications is pleased to announce the publication of Wildness: Voices of the Sacred Landscape, featuring 19 authors including David K. Leff, L.M. Browning, Gunilla Norris, Theodore Richards, Gary Whited, Eric D. Lehman, and me.

Anthology_cover_fin

Here’s a teaser from my essay “Choosing Peregrine.”

This peregrine is not too much bigger than a crow or mourning dove, but unmistakable, once I finally find her in my assisted gaze. We piece together the story.

Support Homebound, an independent, socially and environmentally conscious publisher. Purchase your copy today. Celebrate beauty; choose love. Be kind.

erics wildness quote

 

 

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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).

David K. Leff

Amy Nawrocki

Charlie Bondhus

Melissa Tuckey

Carol and Nick

Charlie and Amy

Amy, Charlie, David, and Melissa

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Byrd’s Books

20140808_213728I had a great time at Saturday’s book signing with David K. Leff and Eric D. Lehman. The booth was part of the Danbury First Congregational Church Fall Festival. If you missed all the local authors (we were just three of many), head over to Byrd’s Books and catch up on your reading list.

amy at byrdsHere’s me reading  from Four Blue Eggs in March at Byrd’s Books in downtown Bethel (126 Greenwood Avenue). If you can’t get there in person, you can order online! Support your local independent bookstore. Byrd’s is one of the state’s best.