Catalog

These are poems that bring our eye and mind close to the beauty of nature in both its finest detail and in its grandeur. In “The Ocotillo Forest,” he writes: “The Ocotillo forest bides its time. It combs the lean light of dawn and dusk/choosing only the finest threads, thin as a melody line, upon which to weave its desert song.” This is an exquisite gallery from Mr. Onachila’s very capable pen.

“These contemplative poems are simple in construct and profound in impact as the poet’s world is tempered through eyes of his adult self. The poems grow slowly more philosophical: the dazed fly crawling on a window pane becomes a metaphor for his father, a caged bird a metaphor for the writer. You will nod, you will shake your head, you will smile, and you will return to these poems again.

Ann Howells, Editor of Illya’s Honey

From places and time that go back to the fifties, Joe Cheslock thoughtfully considers his experiences in “poems of Cleveland and other sacred places.” We are, as Cheslock says, very much who and what we are because of  “where we were born, grew up, and worked. These poems explores this ‘ancestry’ of his life in engaging and thought-provoking lines.

(Second Place winner in the 2017 Orchard Street Press Chapbook  Contest)

This is a book of remarkable images and insights. Consider these lines from “Deaf Mary:” When you signed, a magician’s doves flew/ from your hands. Some words burst/through the air like pheasants/surprised in tall grass.” Waters’ engagement with the details of life and living create a truly rewarding experience for the reader.

(Won First Prize in the 2017 Orchard Street Press Chapbook Contest)

She describes herself as someone who “lives on the outskirts of the Milky Way in the Texas Hill Country, where she is an avid practitioner of Internet avoidance.”  What she does not avoid, however, is a love for language and the images that help share human experience with others. Consider the opening lines from “The Orchard Keeper: “Wonder if he’s still farming/the wind, the weathers,’ the feathers and petals, cold fragile harvest/of marginal land.”

(A Finalist in the 2017 Orchard Street Press Chapbook Contest)

“a matter of  voice” set itself apart from other entries by the quality of its language use, its clarity. In  beautiful poems that prosper in their economy of language, this collection will impress the reader who appreciates good  poetry as exquisite craft. Consider these lines that begin the poem "Heart:"  Her heart is/Clasped hands/That steeple a/Fear she holds/Close. 

In a follow-up to if you follow a crooked river, which explored the places that helped form him as a man, Cheslock does the same with people who have been the primary influences in his life. By the time readers finish the book, they will feel as though they knew these people, that they have come to care about them. Cincinnati poet Richard Hague says of all the stars….: these poems are unassuming, straightforwardly nostalgic, sentiment-filled, and chock full of the decency and worth of everyday life.”

In the summer of 2016, Scott Gregory, having completed a successful career as a special ed teacher, took a ‘trip of a lifetime’ to Africa, an adventure more than fifty years in the making, deriving from his boyhood experience, his passion and sense of curiosity, and an abundant sense of pride in his heritage. This travel journal, along with its pictures, engages us from the beginning with its sense of excitement, wonder, and the ever-present voice and wit of its author.