Description
Poetry. "Inside this collection are poems of great patience and attention. As Willitts writes, 'I fell into earth like seed'—so too does the reader, into a remarkable flow of poems. Each page is an act of deep listening, and an ache of nostalgia that is tethered to simplicity; heirlooms, spinning wool, and horseshoes—bringing to life the sacred, the connection to land and difficult work, love, anger, and questioning. Because time moves at the pace of lessons learned, true wisdom and beauty are able to shine through. Skilled with arrangement, Willitts is able to draw the reader into each poem as an experience, each carefully chosen word on the page like 'adding a pinch of salt to make things rise.' The finished product—'a waterfall / just before a river rushes to leap over.'"—Megan Merchant
Author Bio
He was nominated for 15 Pushcart and 13 Best of the Net awards. Winner of: the 2012 Big River Poetry Review's William K. Hathaway Award; 2013 Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest; 2013 "Trees" Poetry Contest; 2014 Broadsided award; 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor's Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist's Choice, November 2016; Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018. He won a Central New York Individual Artist Award and provided "Poetry on The Bus" which had 48 poems in local buses including 20 bi-lingual poems from 7 different languages. Martin Willitts Jr. has 25 chapbooks including the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor's Choice Award, The Wire Fence Holding Back the World (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including the Blue Light Award 2019, The Temporary World, THE UNCERTAIN LOVER (Dos Madres Press, 2018), and SECRETS NO ONE MUST TALK ABOUT (Dos Madres Press, 2011). His recent books are Unfolding Towards Love (Wipf and Stock, 2020) and HARVEST TIME (Deebrook Editions, 2021). He is an editor for The Comstock Review, and he is judge for the New York State Fair Poetry Contest. Martin Willitts Jr. is a retired Librarian living in Syracuse, New York.
Author City: SYRACUSE, NY USA