The folks at Aspen’s Explore Booksellers recommend a page-turner mystery, nuanced short stories about men and women and a remarkable collection of poetry.
poetry
Posted inSunLit, SunLit Interviews
SunLit Interview: When prose failed her after her son’s death, a Colorado mother turned to poetry
Diane Alters, a Colorado Springs-based former journalist and college professor, turned to poetry in 2012 when her son, Armando Alters Montaño, 22 and known as Mando, died suddenly and violently in Mexico City. Already an accomplished student journalist, Montaño had recently graduated from Grinnell College, interned with the New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
SunLit Excerpt: “Breath, Suspended” charts in poetry the depths of a mother’s grief
This Face You sit in a glass-walled officeat the morgue in Mexico City,studying a cadaver photographof a face you love. You are tryingto convince the coroneryou know this face,this young man who was smilingthe last time you saw him.In your face she has glimpseda blankness, a momentaryrefusal to acknowledgethat the photograph depictsyour son. You barely […]
Posted inSunLit, SunLit Interviews
SunLit Interview: Poet Carol Guerrero-Murphy’s urgency moved her to self-publish
Carol Guerrero-Murphy has a significant history of publishing while teaching creative writing from preschool through graduate levels in southern Colorado. She is semi-retired, writing and teaching in the Adams State Prison College Program and is affiliate faculty in the Western Colorado University MFA creative writing program. She is a professor emerita from Adams State University […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
SunLit Excerpt: The prose poems of “Bright Path, Dark River” meditate on family life and death
Spring Tea Time, 4 o’clock We sit in the west courtyard. We chat about the times we have nearly died over our long lifetimes. Death is a tossed stone. Memory is a pool. The melanoma incident. The two bloody births. The numerous fatal car accidents mitigated or avoided. The angioplasty. Open heart surgeries. Several resistant […]
Posted inSunLit, SunLit Interviews
SunLit Interview: In “Slow Arrow,” Kathryn Winograd wove threads of her mother’s voice
Kathryn Winograd is the author of six books, and her essays have been noted in Best American Essays, and published in numerous journals and anthologies. Her poetry has received three Pushcart Prize nominations and been published in places as diverse as The New Yorker and Cricket Magazine. She currently teaches for Regis University’s Mile High […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
SunLit Excerpt: In “Skyglow,” a look to the heavens for beauty and meaning
“Skyglow” Sometimes, Leonard wakes me at two in the morning to watch the gibbous moon swallowed by Grouse Mountain. On winter nights, moonrise starts left of the butcher’s abandoned camper trailer where once our retired neighbor, vanished now, wiggled his ten blocky fingers at me and said, “Thirty years, and not a one lost.” Leonard […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
A selection of poems from Art Elser’s collection “It Seemed Innocent Enough”
Art Elser’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. His books include a memoir, “What’s It All About, Alfie?” and five poetry books, “We Leave the Safety of the Sea,” “A Death at Tollgate Creek,” “As The Crow Flies (Haiku), “ “To See a World in a Grain of Sand,” and “It Seemed […]
Posted inSunLit, SunLit Interviews
Poet Art Elser looked back at life-changing events to fill his collection “It Seemed Innocent Enough”
Art Elser’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. His books include a memoir, “What’s It All About, Alfie?” five poetry books, “We Leave the Safety of the Sea,” “A Death at Tollgate Creek,” “As The Crow Flies (Haiku), “ “To See a World in a Grain of Sand,” and “It Seemed Innocent […]
Posted inOpinion, Write On, Colorado
Coronavirus experiences, however challenging or fulfilling, do not add up to immunity
During COVID, It Doesn’t Matter It doesn’t matter that you showered two days agoand can no longer tie your sweat pantsor your roots are longer than your front yard grassand the toilet paper wasn’t replaced on the empty tubeeven though you bought the huge bonus packor you need vanilla to add to your cookies,the peanut […]