Bound Together: Like the Grasses

Deborah Cooper

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Winner:Northeastern Minnesota Book Award -Poetry (2013)

For sixteen years, five talented poets met over dinner, sharing their lives, the mundane and the sacred, sharing their words: Deborah Cooper, Candace Ginsberg, Ann Floreen Niedringhaus, Ellie Schoenfeld, and Anne Simpson. The evolution and bonding of a writing group remains a mystery. This group of women poets grew in an atmosphere of affirmation, raucous laughter, and gentle challenge. Life stories, ordinary and profound experiences and insights, were shared. In this collection of their work, distinct writing styles and philosophies emerged to express each individual's unique search for understanding, for a patch of ground to stand on in the wind. Walking together through time and transitions, through the dark struggles, and the surprise of joy, they created this collaborative work and wove the scattered sands of their lives together, lending strength to each of their voices. Winner of the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award.

Book Details

Publisher: Clover Valley Press, LLC
Publish Date: Oct 15th, 2013
Pages: 170
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.36in - 0.52lb
EAN: 9780984657070
Categories: • Women Authors• American - General

About the Author

Cooper, Deborah: - Deborah Cooper is the author of five poetry collections, most recently "Under the Influence of Lilacs" published by Clover Valley Press. She co-edited the anthologies "Beloved on the Earth: Poems of Grief & Gratitude" and "The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home" (Holy Cow! Press). She was the 2012-2014 Duluth Poet Laureate.

Niedringhaus, Ann Floreen: - Ann Floreen Niedringhaus's poems have appeared in numerous regional and national literary journals and in her two chapbooks, "Life Suspended" and "Parallel to the Horizon." She is preparing her first full-length book, "That Unexplored Terrain." Ann valued her experience of co-teaching poetry writing to inmates at the St. Louis County Jail with Deborah Cooper.

Schoenfeld, Ellie: - Ellie Schoenfeld is a poet from Duluth, Minnesota. Her most recent book is "The Dark Honey: New & Used Poems" (Clover Valley Press), and she has collaborated with various musicians to produce poetry/music CDs. She was co-founder of Poetry Harbor, served on the board of Spirit Lake Poetry Series, and is grateful to the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council for past fellowship support.

Praise for this book

This wonderful collection deserves its title: individual poems are bound together by subject and season, each one making the one before and after it ring deep and true. From hawks and bliss to the loneliness of a new condo, these poems give us a view that is as open and wide as the prairie. - Joyce Sutphen, Minnesota Poet Laureate, "Naming the Stars" and "First Words" The poems in this collection may be bound together, but individually they fly on bright wings. They fly in close, letting their images dart into metaphor to transform perceptions of loss, loneliness, war, disability. These are soft-spoken hard poems relieved by humor and the wonder happiness is. "Bound Together" isn't novel-length, but it carries big themes and high standards. To anyone who has left the house at night to watch the star-studded sky and spoken to a distant star in prayer or by name or wish, this book is for you. - Sharon Chmielarz, "Love from the Yellowstone Trail" Reading "Bound Together: Like the Grasses" I was struck by how distinct each voice is, as though I were not so much reading as listening. I think of five women talking late into the night, after the day's labors. Now comes philosophy mixed with story, children learning compassion as a dog dies under the stars, a shared "urgency to make my whole life worthwhile." How do we care and keep caring? How do we stay alert and hopeful? These poems are lovely, yes, and they are also useful, exploring the ways that hardship and joy are bound together in our souls. - Connie Wanek, "On Speaking Terms"