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Book Cover for: Hawk's Cry, Mary Pacifico Curtis

Hawk's Cry

Mary Pacifico Curtis

Hawk's Cry explores the ways in which humanity becomes flawed and the rippling of that brokenness into our relationships and our treatment of the earth. The hawk's ever-present circling cry is a call to consciousness.

Author Brian Turner has said this about the book: "In Hawk's Cry, the latest collection by Mary Pacifico Curtis, we are given a cry of pain and beauty, gods and prisons, Ai Weiwei, Greta Thunberg, and so much more-with Sinatra crooning from the past as we learn "the wisdom of the calendar." Hawk's Cry is a formally inventive collection, with meditations that span the concerns of the human heart while navigating a spiritual journey. It manages to be both restless in its curiosity and philosophical in its tender-hearted gaze."

This full-length collection is a long time in the making, and quite a few of the poems have been picked up by literary magazines

Book Details

  • Publisher: Finishing Line Press
  • Publish Date: Feb 24th, 2023
  • Pages: 84
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.20in - 0.30lb
  • EAN: 9798888381410
  • Categories: Subjects & Themes - Death, Grief, LossSubjects & Themes - FamilyWomen Authors

About the Author

Curtis, Mary Pacifico: - Mary Pacifico Curtis is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, seasoned branding and PR professional, and author of poetry and non-fiction. Published work includes her recent memoir, Understanding Moonseed, two poetry chapbooks, Between Rooms and The White Tree Quartet (WordTech's Turning Point imprint), and numerous pickups in literary magazines and anthologies.

Praise for this book

What strikes me the most about Hawk's Cry is how distinctive the voice is. "Canary in rare olive, / Throated, / golden trills" describes a bird in one of these poems, but that description could also be evoked to describe these rare poems. Wise, yet vulnerable, Mary Pacifico Curtis truly grapples with the human condition in ways that most poets only wish to do.

-Charlotte Pence, author of Code, 2020 Book of the Year from Alabama Poetry Society


In Hawk's Cry, the latest collection by Mary Pacifico Curtis, we are given a cry of pain and beauty, gods and prisons, Ai Weiwei, Greta Thunberg, and so much more-with Sinatra crooning from the past as we learn "the wisdom of the calendar." Hawk's Cry is a formally inventive collection, with meditations that span the concerns of the human heart while navigating a spiritual journey. It manages to be both restless in its curiosity and philosophical in its tender-hearted gaze.

-Brian Turner, My Life as a Foreign Country


At its heart, Hawk's Cry is "Kintsukuroi." But it is not broken pottery Mary P. Curtis mends with the shimmering, golden yoke of her wisdom. What she hands the reader is the gift of an imperfect, fragmented life fused into an exquisite whole. Broken histories, broken families, broken bodies, and broken minds-none of these impairments need prevent a meaningful, beautiful life, Curtis shows us. And it's not just the past that can be gilded with perspective. To the dangers of now and future times, to the hawks, ever present and circling overhead, we can say: from you I gain the strength to meet you. Hawk's Cry is a triumphant book and a reminder that despite it all, it is a great gift to be human.

-Melissa Studdard, author of Dear Selection Committee and I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast