Authors Julie Ann Cook, Bobbie Harrison, Donna Wylie, and Genevieve C. Kissack each have had vastly different life experiences, but they are united through poetry and womanhood. Join us as their varied work is shared—from their recently released collections—expressing the universality of joy, grief, faith, and longing.
About the Books:
“In Theology of Four-Letter Words & Other Well-Intentioned Heresies, Julie Ann Cook uses poems to interrogate the idea of what God can or should be. Instead of a singular view, Cook envisions a world where God is found in all things such as bees, heat and time. “God is Bone: usually sturdy/sometimes frail/rarely seen”. These poems are written with care and intentionality, while also challenging the ideal of what we think is righteous or Godly. This is a beautiful book written like a new gospel. “ — Angelo Geter, Poet Laureate of Rock Hill, SC
In Half a Couple, Bobbie Harrison explores and shares her journey of grief and her path into widowhood. Throughout this collection, Bobbie employs unique formatting which allows the poems to shine on multiple levels: while each column is half of a whole poem, it is also a whole story unto itself. Likewise, the generous white space within the collection echoes the emptiness of grief as well as the breathing room needed to find oneself anew. Overall, through this book, in language that is poetic in its simplicity and depth, Bobbie makes the intensely personal vividly relatable.
Born to Be Me, a poetry chapbook by Donna Wylie, represents a body of work that spans twenty years. The themes embrace the breadth of those decades, calling to mind love lost and gained, the pull of nature, memories of childhood, and the author's search for her place within the world, as a woman, friend, daughter, and member of the human race.
A Citrus Taste—A Memoir of Nazi-Occupied Paris by Genevieve C. Kissack nurtures seeds of memory into blossoms of quiet revelation. This beautiful study of human nature through the lens of war and years is a poignant and timeless collection of poetry, easily accessible to the reader and incredibly moving.