Please join me in welcoming Laura Foley to Peeking Between the Pages today with a guest post and giveaway. Yesterday I reviewed her book of poetry entitled Joy Street and I really enjoyed it (my review). Today she joins us with a guest post about where her passion for poetry came from…
My passion for poetry started in Fifth or Sixth grade when my English teacher played a recording of Dylan Thomas reading his poem, Fern Hill. His scratchy Welsh-accented male voice filled the classroom and thrilled me. I loved the mystery of the words that evoked a fairy-tale-like childhood (“When I was young and easy, under the apple boughs…”) and then moved at the end to frightening sad images of struggle and death (“…though I sang in my chains like the sea”). Later I studied English Lit. in college and received a Masters and a MPhil (everything but dissertation in American Poetry) BUT I did not write my own poem, not one, until I was forty-five years old. I didn’t think I could do it. I was content being a scholar, leaving the creative world to others. I was also busy raising three children, travelling the world with my professor-husband. At forty-five, my husband (much older than I) died, and I turned with all my passion, sorrow and energy to the creative life, and now, twelve years later, have completed six books of poetry (two are presently in manuscript, seeking publishers), won awards, published widely. I love writing poetry, little glimpses of life, and I also conduct writing workshops for those dealing with grief, loss, illness. It’s rewarding and inspiring work.
About the Book
Each poem in this radiantly plainspoken collection offers subtle and penetrating observations that swell to a rich tapestry of ordinary life, beheld from a stance of grace and buoyancy. Starting with intimations of desire in childhood, these poems travel through ordinary domestic scenes to the blessing of a maturity in which the narrator, still embracing desire and wild promise, thrives in the midst of life’s darker gifts. This collection is truly a joy to read. It puts to shame those of us who walk through our days with “the din of loneliness,” ignoring life’s many invitations for bliss.
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About the Author
Laura Foley is the author of four poetry collections. The Glass Tree won the Foreword Book of the Year Award, Silver, and was a Finalist for the New Hampshire Writer’s Project, Outstanding Book of Poetry. Her poems have appeared in journals and magazines including Valparaiso Poetry Review, Inquiring Mind, Pulse Magazine, Poetry Nook, Lavender Review, and in the anthology, In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief. She won Harpur Palate’s Milton Kessler Memorial Poetry Award and the Grand Prize for theAtlanta Review’s International Poetry Contest. She lives on a woody hill in South Pomfret, Vermont with her partner Clara Gimenez and their three dogs. Please visit her website for book information or more poems: laurafoley.net.
GIVEAWAY – OPEN TO US & CANADIAN RESIDENTS
1 copy up for giveaway!
*CLICK HERE* and fill out the form to enter
Draw Date January 31/15
Thank you, Peeking, for having me on your blog and thank you for liking, and reviewing, Joy.
Thank you for featuring Laura for the tour.
What a fantastic introduction to poetry!
It seems as though Laura has led an adventurous life. Wonderful.