I’m honored to be among the finalists for the Foreword Indie Book Awards in the category of Autobiography/Memoir for The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory. Winners will be announced in June.
Foreword Finalist
Tears come down wet
 Tears come down wet, whether in fear, grief, delight, or gratitude.
Read my latest essay, “Failing Feet and Finger Lakes” in the autumn issue of Fired Up! Creative Expression for Challenging Times.
My poem, “Lucifer Falls, New York,” was also inspired by the gorges and trailheads near Cayuga Lake. What’s the connection between poetry and prose? Read more about the lines between them in my essay from Re-Imagining.Â
Like war planes, a crowd
of raptors scull through the blank
and cloudless sky. One
after another, they stream
over the open paddock
of midsummer green, advance
toward a still and speechless
line of trees. Their portents
reach the forest’s door; needles
of pine brace between hard clay
and treachery. The bone black jaw
of a red-bellied snake ruins
a toad’s last chance for escape.
He is in the middle of it now,
like the fawn whose femur lay
furloughed in the gorge,
trespassing on the slick ink
of river-smoothed black rocks.
“Lucifer Falls, New York” appears in Reconnaissance, published by Homebound Publications. This collection and my memoir The Comet’s Tail are both available wherever books are sold, especially at Homebound’s online store. Support Indie Presses and shop Small Business Saturday.
Award winning medical narratives
Thanks to poet Cortney Davis for her review of The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory posted in LitMed: Literature Arts Medicine Database sponsored by NYU Health. This is an excellent database which curates the human condition. Cortney’s poetry collection Taking Care of Time is also featured on LitMed. I’m proud to be included as one of the featured authors. Here is an excerpt:
This little book (little both in page numbers and in its 4×6 inch dimension) is a beautifully written contemplation not only of what happened to the author’s memory during and after illness, but of memory itself, its twists and turns and mysteries. Is memory reliable? Nawrocki notes how the memories of family and friends sometimes didn’t jive with the official documents: “I toggle between the subjectivity of other people’s memories and the objectivity of chest x-rays and EKGs” (page 27). And if eleven people write about an event are they all telling the same story? “At least eleven people tell the story of Amy on June 18th when I arrive in ‘soft restraints'” (page 19). At book’s end, the author writes, “Memory is a thing; remembering is an action, ongoing” (page 46). In these pages she gives us a wonderful story, a memory of a time with no memory, in poetic language, with compassion and eloquence.
In other news, The Comet’s Tail was awarded the Mind Body Spirit Gold Medal from Living Now Book Awards, which celebrate the innovation and creativity of newly published books that enhance the quality of our lives.
Purchase a copy of The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory at Homebound Publications, Amazon, or your favorite independent bookseller.
The Energy of a Tidal Wave
I am not a delicate flower. I am not
the likeness of a leopardess, I am the energy
of a tidal wave. I am the catastrophe of a raindrop.
I am an orchid, I am a lily. I am a life and
death without a mask. I am a fork and a forklift.
I am rubbish of apple seeds. I am mother, I am
earth, and when I speak, I call up windlessness
and ask its name.
~Journal excerpt from March 1992, featured in The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory, an exploration of my journey into an out of an encephalitic coma.
Detectives
About two weeks to go until the official release of The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory.
Though today is the last day of the month, my 30/30 journey of writing one poem a day for 30 days ended yesterday. Click here to review the month. Thanks to Tupelo Press for all their support, and a special thanks to all those who sponsored me with a donation.
Read Local Author Fair
Join me and 17 other authors from Connecticut at the Read Local Author Fair. Saturday, March 24 from 11-1:00 at the Riverfront Community Center, 300 Welles Street, Glastonbury, CT 06033. I’ll be there with copies of The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory (in advance of its official release date!) as well as Reconnaissance, Four Blue Eggs, Literary Connecticut, A History of Connecticut Food, and A History of Connecticut Wine. Come out and show your support for local authors. In the meantime, follow my poetry progress with Tupelo Press and support Homebound Publications.Â
Insomnia, debunked
From Four Blue Eggs (2017 Homebound Publications), a poem that has had quite a journey, from a notebooks sketch more than 25 years ago to a small but central kernel excerpted in my forthcoming memoir, The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory.
In My Sleeplessness, I Hear an Opera
In the beginning, I hear the darkness.
I am crowded by the soprano’s knowlege
of body rhythms. I see I E flat cry.
And then the light bulbs begin to sprout, one
by one, by the side of the stage where all
the Presidents line up in order.
I know them by their thunderous tenors,
because when eyelids magnetize I do not
sleep. After that I pretend that I lay
in a coffin, my arms folded like white
linen in a closet oddly fitted
to the size of my body. I smell cedar.
But all this time I have been wondering
if my eyelashes have learned how to sing.
I’ll be reading from Four Blue Eggs and other works at Byrd’s Books in Bethel CT, on Friday, May 18th at 7:00 for part three of Byrd’s Spring Poetry Series.
Forthcoming
As the year winds down, I’m looking forward next year’s release of The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory. This will be one of two essays released by Little Bound Books, a division of Homebound Publications.
Kirkus calls it “a complex and compelling memoir.” Read the full review here.
As an enticement (Homebound is taking pre-orders), here is “In My Sleeplessness, I Hear an Opera” which is featured in Four Blue Eggs.
In My Sleeplessness, I Hear an Opera
In the beginning, I hear the darkness.
I’m crowded by the soprano’s knowledge
of body rhythms. I see E flat cry.
And then the light bulbs begin to sprout, one
by one, by the side of the stage where all
the presidents line up in order.
I know them by their thunderous tenors
because when eyelids magnetize, I do not
sleep. After that, I pretend I that I lie
in a coffin, my arms folded like white
linen in a closet oddly fitted
to the size of my body. I smell cedar.
But all this time I have been wondering
If my eyelashes have learned how to sing.
Amy Nawrocki 