C.L. Downing
C.L. (Ciel Leontyne) Downing has previous work featured in Imbroglio, Ribbit, Text Lures Text, Word & Image, North Coast Squid, and The Timberline Review. She has won the Academy of American Poets Prize, Honorable Mention for the Elizabeth Lyons Award, and Runner-up for the MoonPath Press Sally Albiso Award. Her first novel is to be published near the end of 2024.
C.L. Downing is also an accomplished photographer of nature, and from behind the lens, even uncovers beauty in the decaying world at large. Her photographs have won awards, are prized by art lovers, and grace many publications, such as this very collection, as well as the cover of the 2023 edition of the literary journal North Coast Squid.
Culling from a life of adventure/misadventure, sometimes privilege, sometimes hardship, always hope, she brings an avenue of authenticity and prospect for optimism in a vial of words painted in the colors of laughter, despair, loneliness, elation, and courage.
Watch this recording of C.L. reading from To Walk the North Direction, along with
Kathleen Fagley:
To Walk the North Direction: $19.99
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Poem from To Walk the North Direction
The Gardener
The lapis light of morning diffused by marine mist paints a canvas of wooly pastels. The whistling buoy cries out, searing the white air, returning to the shore like a cherished echo climbing up the headland to my cabin at the wood’s edge. I stop my absentminded weed pulling, mid-tug, perking my head up like Coyote to sniff the air— receive the whistle that traveled all this way to settle in my garden. I stuff it in my pocket atop a falcon’s shriek, waves lapping, and the lazy buzz of a dying bee. My pocket bulges to overflowing. I will pluck them as needed to fertilize my spirit.
