What Others Say
In Down River with Li Po, Karen Pierce Gonzalez
crafts a shimmering mosaic that captivates and astonishes. Her poetic voice can
not only hold readers clos but can also leave them breathless. She invites us
on a journey through transience, where lives intersect with rivers, shadows,
and stars, each moment imbued with meaning yet destined to drift away.
To reach back through history and bring it forward with poetry and expressive art for a mythology that fits our time – this is a challenge. Not only for the poet’s prescient imagination but also for the clarity of her everyday vision. Does this enterprise provide insight into our present madness? For sure the vibrant artwork and words in these pages contain brilliant and provocative lyrics, and whether they inform or only tease the reader is neither limited nor restrained in the slightest by their own weaknesses of faith or lack of confidence. Karen Pierce Gonzalez truly believes it is possible to climb the heights of self-awareness. Is she an effective vessel for the three women spirits she addresses here? And for their uncanny knowledge? You’ll know for yourselves when the collections’ imagery have done its work fully. There’s no doubt she has touched and been anointed by her guides’ ethereal dew.
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This collection is
an amazing journey through the feminine. The images Karen has created are bold
and, yet, they offer a profound strength in their softness. Colors and textures
of fabric, threads, stones, and beads, as well as natural elements, such as
spices and the dried flowers of Rising and Rosehips offer unexpected, visually
rich expressions that match the beautiful poetry they rest alongside because
they, too, have been Moon kissed, Earth wrought, Vision drunk.
Sara Bell, Artist, SBArtistrees
Patricia's Pen Yesterday and Today
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.
As curious and dazzling as the
identification tool itself, Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s Sightings from a Star
Wheel (Origami Poems Project) 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.
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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.
