Last month, I had two chapbooks accepted by a small, fine arts press that does offset printing, Gold Quoin Press. Yay! I couldn’t be more excited that HONEYCOMB OF DEAD SWEET BEES has a home. One of the poems in the collection, “The Pomegranate,” has also just been released as a limited edition broadside. Earlier this week the editor and I signed the press run.

More on that soon, but in the meantime I thought I’d share the wonderful blurbs I’ve received for SWEET BEES from Wendy Barker, Marjorie Saiser, and Carol Quinn:

Laura Madeline Wiseman’s chapbook Honeycomb of Dead Sweet Bees is aptly named, for these poems celebrate both the sweetness and bitterness of ordinary life. And yet, although she laments that “What you seek / is what cannot be found,” Wiseman ultimately rejoices that “the whole world is home.” These are poems that, like the “strong hands” in “Farm Hands,” are poems we can trust. ~Wendy Barker, author of Nothing Between Us

 

Laura Madeline Wiseman is a poet who pays close attention to seasons and the natural world, showing us the loon, the gull, the eagle, showing us sycamore, magnolia, and moon flower. She is not afraid to show us darkness. The gift of this poet is that she points us always toward “opening to air and light.” ~Marjorie Saiser, author of Beside You at the Stoplight

 

Wiseman’s collection is emblematized by the honeycomb, but that chambered entity transmogrifies to another—the pomegranate—and its associations with Demeter’s search for her lost daughter, labyrinths, calendars, longing, and the barriers that block the way back to that which we desire. There is such careful attention to detail and to the world here—“Winter reveals the little sounds”, we learn in “Midwinter Tongue”—and this vigilance is rewarded time and again with the discovery of a mythic resonance in the midst of the ordinary, and connections made across great distances and spans of time in spite of the forces that would tear apart. ~Carol Quinn, author of Acetylene

I am always humbled by the experience of asking for blurbs, even though I know it’s part of the “biz,” if you will. I love Wendy’s book Poems’ Progress. I’ve had it for years and go back to it when I think about the revision process/progress of my own work. It continues to make me consider how poems begin, evolve, and develop as they are written, as they become collected in chapbooks and books. I just ordered three more of her collections.

I discovered Carol Quinn’s lovely book after Cider Press Review accepted a poem of mine. I wanted to check out their book series and ordered Carol’s winning collection. Her poems are so lovely. I can’t wait until her next collection is out.

The first time I heard Marjorie Saiser read was in the Bailey library at UNL. There was an afternoon reading of the anthology Nebraska Presence by Backwater Press. A friend of mine was in the anthology and asked if I wanted to come along. Since I was new to Lincoln, I thought it would be a treat to begin to hear local writers. Marge had this wonderful poem about feeling the teeth of a pet dog and comparing that to feeling the teeth of stingrays while feeding them in the ocean. Oh! It gave me chills. Since then, whenever I get a chance to hear her read, I do. She gives the most amazing readings. I’ve read several of her collections including her chapbook Rooms, and her books Bones of a Very Fine Hand and Lost in Seward County. She has a new book and a new chapbook coming out in 2013.

Thank you Wendy, Carol, and Marjorie! Your blurbs are perfect.