Katy E. Ellis: Forty Bouts in the Wilderness
In this searing collection, verse blends with lyrical prose, in a nonce form that includes striking
tercets and footnotes to narrate a deeply moving memoir of loss and of grappling with faith. The
tender and direct language in Forty Bouts in the Wilderness propels the reader through difficult
human experiences and life-long remembering that can expand and transform those experiences.
The authenticity of this book sets it apart and makes me want to re-read it. The immaculate
imagery embeds it in my memory.”
—Eileen Cleary, author of Wild Pack of the Living
(footnote 13)
to the belly of the moon-chalked night: I ask
will I meet my lost son when I die?
and the moon’s answer spills along the sill
like a barely audible breeze turns picture-book pages
past the scene of a thumb-sized girl clutching
the dirty pink ribbon she tied to the dragonfly
who lifts her free
from a life bound to a slime-mouth toad-in-law—
the moon’s gesso-ready voice brushes me apart
from the sludge that is my body
and into the pearl’s blue crater
where a child reclines his palm in mine
looking up from this night’s light
to the moons we don’t see
Katy E. Ellis is the author of the novel-length prose poem Home Water, Home Land
(Tolsun Books) and three chapbooks, including Night Watch, winner of Floating Bridge Presss 2017
John Pierce Chapbook Competition. Her poetry appears in a number of print and online literary
journals and anthologies including I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State, SWWIM Every Day,
and The American Journal of Poetry. She holds a BA in creative writing
University of Victoria';s Fine Arts Program in British Columbia and a Master's Degree in English
with a creative writing emphasis from Western Washington University, in Bellingham,
Washington. For five years Katy co-curated WordsWest Literary Series, a monthly literary event
in West Seattle. She has been awarded grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Seattle's
Office of Arts & Culture, and Artist Trust/ Centrum..
Visit Katy's page at MoonPathPress.com
Purchase Katy's collection from your favorite retailer:
Susan Landgraf: Out of a Land of Alkali & Chromate
“There’s a craftsperson at work in Susan Landgraf’s Out of a Land of Alkali & Chromate. Her
hybrid and inventive forms guide the reader from one unexpected place to another—physically,
emotionally, and ecologically. Experiments with the long bones of language yield immersive
sound, color, and taste, the experience of multisensory synesthesia. These richly detailed and
heartbreaking poems were grown in a land where oysters teach us to
pray and peaches to meditate; each surprise had me hungering for more.”
—Gabriela Denise Frank, author of How to Not Become the Breaking
…all the king’s horses and all the king’s men…
My sisters and I dye eggs, pile
them in the crockery bowl as if they are golden.
New patent shoes wait under our beds
for the next day’s resurrection.
If she wasn’t good enough for him...
my father says before the gun’s sharp retort crackles
like an egg in the enameled pan.
My mother ducks…
He fires again. When he gets
out of the hospital, bandages turban his head
like a white upside-down egg cup…
We visit him on the weekends
learning to hide our bruises
growing out of our new shoes.
Susan Landgraf has published more than 400 poems in Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore,
SWWIM, CALYX, Rattle, and others. Books include Journey of Trees published by The Poetry
Box; Crossings published by Ravenna Press, and The Inspired Poet from Two Sylvias Press.
Winner of multiple awards and grants, an Academy of American Poets Laureate award in 2020
resulted in a book of Muckleshoot Indian Tribe poetry titled A Muckleshoot Poetry Anthology: At
the Confluence of the Green and White Rivers published by Washington State University Press in
2024. Landgraf has given more than 150 workshops and readings in the US and abroad,
including the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, San Miguel Writers’ Conference, Marine and
Science Technology Center, and Antioch International, Oxford, England. A former journalist,
she taught at Highline College for 30 years and at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She served as
Poet Laureate of Auburn, Washington, from 2018 to 2020.
Visit Susan's page at MoonPathPress.com
Purchase Susan's collection from your favorite retailer:
