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Finalist in The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2023The poems in The Further Adventures of Zen Patriarch Dōgen were inspired by the life and teachings of Dōgen Zenji, a thirteenth-century Japanese monk credited with bringing Chan Buddhism to Japan and founding the Sōto school of Zen. The writing is founded upon the presumed experience and perspective Dōgen would have if he were alive today. Essential Buddhist concepts of bare attention, full presence, impermanence, no-self, and the path to liberation from suffering play out through the "eyes of a river" - in a self-driving car, a dentist's chair, the water's edge, the contemplation of circularity. In a world of bare attention and full presence, there are no words; inherent in these poems is the paradox of attempting to express this experience through the medium of language."The Further Adventures of Zen Patriarch Dōgen elucidates the intricacies of Zen philosophy in poems spare as 'a winterbreath of silence' and lush as 'the rhythm/ of hands, / gullwing, / flutter/ of beachplum/ blossoms.' Reader, you will find here wisdom, and its sister, compassion." --Gillian Cummings, author of The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter "The poet holds moments of life in his open hands, sings them and lifts them beyond words, bringing me to deepest stillness. I treasure this unique book and shall keep it close to my meditation seat and my heart." --Judith S. Schmidt, Ph.D, author of In the Garden of Love and Loss"Nouns fall upon us like snowflakes and melt away. A slow and attentive reading of this spare collection offers a taste of the continuity of motion found in stillness-an endless becoming that moves inevitably like cormorants to chum." --Kathryn Weld, author of Waking Light "In poems both playful and profound, Zimmerman taps into the beauty, strangeness, difficulty, and promise of the meditative life. I thought about these poems long after reading them." --Lynn Schmeidler, author of History of Gone

Blue Chip Stamp Guitar is a love story-about Sue and her guitar It starts with a cheap guitar the poet's mother bought with Blue Chip stamps and continues through her life, outlasting jobs, marriages, and deaths. A guitar is just a wooden box with six strings strung from one end to another, but in the musician's hands, it becomes music and magic, companion and comfort. These backstage poems describe the teenager dreaming of fame, the young adult dealing with sex and stage fright, and the seasoned performer lugging gear and singing through bad weather, hecklers, sore throats and sore fingers. At the beginning and the end, she plays alone, feeling the calluses on her fingertips as she sends music into the air. These poems will appeal to all music lovers, especially the musicians who share that special bond with their instruments."There is no pretention or affectation in this work, just solid storytelling, and poetic craft at its best. Here is a rich life, bittersweet, at times vulnerable yet underneath is a quality of humility with fierce independence in the life and the poetry."--Dave Mehler, editor of Triggerfish Critical Review, author of Roadworthy"This collection takes the reader into the 'raw, unpolished edges, dust, and glue, /the underbelly of a cathedral, ' of a life lived in pursuit of music and love finally found in Fred, the husband/roadie to whom the book is dedicated. By the end of this intimate collection, you'll be singing, 'Let's play another memory.'"--Lacie Semenovich, author of Community, Not Market, and Legacies

These poems are a meditation on the myriad divisions and inequities we face, both personally and as a society. In Disconnects and Other Broken Threads, award-winning poet Emily-Sue Sloane pulls on many of the fraying threads that divide us and gently weaves them with striking imagery to inspire connections through hope and, at times, humor.------------------"Like a gardener cultivating a bonsai tree, Emily-Sue Sloane takes big, wild concepts like mortality, impotent rage, grief and regret and presents them to us as stark small snapshots of everyday life." -Rorie Kelly, singer/songwriter, Shadow Work "Sloane sees, feels, and speaks with an honesty that will not accept the glib comfort of pretense....[She] suggests again and again, with rage, regret, humor, irony and anger: This is what it takes to be alive." -Scudder Parker, poet and author of Safe as Lightning "Indignant of social injustices, she deconstructs the makeup of contemporary life, giving a thundering voice to the voiceless." -Tonia Leon, bilingual poet and translator, author of My Beloved Chaos

These delightful and conversational poems explore the concept of gOD, with a sense of humor, a childlike wonder, a reverence for the natural world, and an honest look in the mirror."Penelope Scambly Schott has captured a marvelously witty glimpse of the divinity that resides within us all: a self-awareness creating universes and loving every tiniest bit, laughing and crying over our human foibles and destructive tendencies. With brilliant use of poetic form and license, the author invites us to really examine our understanding of the Source of all and the consequences of our own actions. This is a must-read for anyone who is at one of those points of asking, "What's it all about, anyway?"-Reverend Dr. Ruth L. Miller, author of Unveiling your Hidden Power and Uncommon Prayer"Penelope Scambly Schott spins out a powerful picture of the Deity in gOD: A Respectfully Divergent Testament. The "whole other" mystery who creates the universe turns out to be totally relatable, showing up in a series of conversational poems, revealing a deep caring about all of creation and its creatures. Schott's testimony is indeed respectful and not so divergent that I can't give it my own respectful 'Amen!'"-Karl Vercouteren, United Church of Christ pastor, retired

2nd Place Winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2023-This collection of poetic observations derives from years of volunteer work, both at a homeless clinic and a women's day shelter.

Third Place Winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2023Reading Wind is a beautiful tribute to a father, written in a daughter's favorite language-poetry.

First Place Winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2023The Squannacook at Dawn revolves around fishing, exploring the poet's loss of his father, the natural world, aging, environmental change, and spirituality.

Steven Croft explores the natural beauty in his birth-state of Georgia, where his poems bring the reader to the lush coastal landscapes of the Barrier Islands and the nurturing comforts of Southern living.

Rushing in as a welcome surprise, these "new late poems" were mostly composed both late in the year and late in the author's years. In Jump Straight Up, Jarold Ramsey versifies and pokes at an odd knot of themes: encroaching age overtaking a long wonderful marriage; the delights of grandparenthood; awareness of our "interspecies" situation in the everyday natural order; the blessings and challenges of Central Oregon's canyons, summits, and rangelands; and the intriguing ways the mostly horizontal left-to-right axis of our lives seems to shift in old age toward the vertical-"way down" (and out) but also "jump straight up" (in the imagination). "Whether it's with elegies or tributes, Ramsey prompts us toward joy, urging us to jump straight up, / free of the gravity of time."-Paulann Petersen, author of My Kindred "Jump Straight Up is a buoyantly beautiful report from a Northwest master at age 85."-John Daniel, author of Gifted "Ramsey delivers accounts of history, local lore, love for kinfolk, and yearning to understand the changes carrying us all along, richly in need of poems just like these."-Kim Stafford, author of Singer Come from Afar

These poems crisscross the Pacific: from an elegy for a forest in Alaska to a magical wish for those living on the streets of Saigon.

The Call Home binds five generations of women, revealing an undeniable rhythm of love and suffering, a pulse as they bear witness to patterns of beauty, connection, tragedy, loss-all listening for the call home.

Drawing on a lifelong career in gerontology & anthropology, the poems of Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts explore the physical, emotional, and spiritual impact of the aging experience.