What Others Say
=======
More Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs
=======
Mountains of Ocean: 10 Waves
is an imaginative voyage poem with expressive graphic art, which color compliments and imbues emotion into each of the ten Waves—a featured voice with a story of the voyage. These are the voices of emigres, of capitalists, of runaways. The first voice is innocent, adventurous. In Wave II, The captain uses "the weight of his advantage" "The voyage, a bold treasure he makes of himself." The Merchant justifies the selling of hope. The spinster, "unmarried; the word sticks to her tongue/, but she can't swallow it." A boy stows away, forgets "how his mother might have cried/when she woke to find him gone." A daughter arrives alive; a lad is buried at sea; a husband can't save his wife. When Wave X laps ashore, "On new land/most of us empty-handed, empty-hearted...stuff ourselves with land grabs and berries" we see the dreadful effects of emigration and colonization. Karen Pierce Gonzalez has captured the motivations of these voices to trek the Mountains of Ocean, and she has poignantly detailed the losses of such a migration. In the form of a poetic libretto, Mountains of Ocean tells both of an historic time and now, with the great migrations of people from war, climate, politics, or hunger. Pierce Gonzalez is a master of telling a story through art and poetry.
=======
is a vivid and wonderful chapbook of poems that take us to far-away islands, colorful lagoons, and open-sky constellations, is a song that I never want to stop hearing. Karen Pierce Gonzalez skillfully transports us to another world, one that is beautiful, memorable, immersive, and enchanting. Poetic language meets storytelling in this lovely compilation of well-matched poems, with each poem bouncing off one another to create a smooth and pleasant rhythm, much like the synchrony of waves on an ocean. Language weaves sun, water, ravens, feathers, and I come away wishing to be here, in these poems, feeling the mudflats in Raven wouldn’t let me berth where, chasing the solar wind clouds in Before Sailing, and looking out on the canoe of On cold days. RavenSong is a blended melody of art, nature, and language that will carry you to a dreamy place not to be forgotten.
=======
Sightings from a Star Wheel
As curious and dazzling as the
identification tool itself, Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s Sightings from a Star
Wheel explores the skies with fresh, poetic eyes. In 4 poems, Pierce
Gonzalez takes us to familiar, skyward spaces with imagination, contemplation,
and stark imagery. From an otherworldly diner where the dancing moves in times
with the stars… to lessons learned from Icarus, “foolishly feathered with wax…”
to personifying the Corona Borealis… to a reflection of how one’s eternal body
is a part of something much larger… the poet’s lines shimmy and shimmer through
space’s time. This micro-collection propels the reader full-throttle across a
greater expanse while slowing to inhale deeply at the awe of what surrounds and
abounds.
K Weber, poet, digital photo collage artist. Creator online collaborative poetry collections.
Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s new micro chap Sightings from a Star Wheel encapsulates elements from cosmology in her staccato but sharp tracks. Innovative wordplay laces her lines with meanings more than one. She weaves a scenic universe in her staves. The reader’s gauge and gaze are markers of her mastery.
Read her to relish the joys of poetic excellence.
=======
