ISBN 978-0-9981963-7-4
$18.00 / $21.00 (Canada)
5.5 x 8.5 80 pp
PUB DATE: March 2018 Book Release Featured Poetry
These are poems of careful observation, of a noticing so acute that every detail—“hillsides sizzling with red sumacs,” “yesterday’s dishes / left by the sink,” “the hard crackling of twigs under feet,” crows “rehearsing their dark theatrics”—claims its rightful significance in our imaginations. With scenes that open gently in suggestions that are subtle and satisfying, Thomas Mitchell’s poems do what the best poems do: they assist our concentration, allowing us to encounter the beauty and relevance of all that is around us.
—Albert Garcia, author of Rainshadow, Skunk Talk, and A Meal Like That
These poems praise the natural world, the rocks and hills and plants of the West. They’re in love with its animals, insects and birds, fully alive to the moment, yet haunted throughout by a dim nostalgia. I most admire their clear language and close attention, in the tradition of Jim Harrison and Wendell Berry.
—Joseph Millar, author of Kingdom, Blue Rust, Fortune, and Overtime
About the Author
Thomas Mitchell
THOMAS MITCHELL was raised in New York and California, but has lived in Oregon since 1980. He received his Masters from California State University, Sacramento, where he studied with the poet, Dennis Schmitz. He received an MFA from the University of Montana, where he worked with Richard Hugo and Madeline De Frees. His first collection of poems, The Way Summer Ends, was published by Lost Horse Press in 2016. His poems have appeared in many journals, including The New England Review and New Letters, and are forthcoming in the Valparaiso Poetry Review and Miramar Magazine.
BRUSH STROKES
Imagine an open window,
a sash blowing
in the morning breeze.
The sound of crickets.
The magnificent mountains
stretching to the East.
Everywhere the brilliant sky,
hillsides sizzling with red sumacs.
Within the open sacred places—
Caribou tracks
in straight lines, loops, and circles.
—Thomas Mitchell