Poetry. "Surprisingly soon into Anne Coray's outstanding first poetry collection, BONE STRINGS, you can 'relax' (the quotes guard against any impression that these might all be light or easy poems) in the knowledge that you are in the hands of a writer with an infectious confidence in what she says and how she says it, and so you are willing and then eager to get her take on things. From her vantage point in Alaska, where she was born and where she resides, this take is very close to nature, about which she writes not with an isolated interest but with a comprehensive concern about the seasons and all the forms of life they affect, especially human life. So many individual poems in this book reflect the strength of the author's voice. Of course, to illustrate, we can go right to its resident 'Ars Poetica,' a typically articulate poem that concludes: 'What you tend, after all,/is invariably simple: / a leaf, a blade, a stone, / the vowels long and pure, / rich and lovely.' Indeed, like these tenderly expressive, rich and lovely poems."—Martin Mitchell

Anne Coray lives at her birthplace on remote Qizhjeh Vena (Lake Clark) in southwest Alaska. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Poetry, Seneca Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Rattapallax, among others. She has been a finalist with Carnegie Mellon, Water Press & Media, and Bright Hill Press, as well as for the Frances Locke Memorial Award and the Rita Dove Poetry Award. For several years she worked for the bilingual program in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, north of Anchorage. She lives with her husband, Steve, and her dog, Zipper.