Événement

Broken Kingdom by Michelle Bitting poetry book launch

Join us to celebrate Broken Kingdom by Michelle Bitting, winner of the 2018 Catamaran Poetry Prize.

Ticket price includes:

Complimentary copy of the prize winning book Broken Kingdom.

Complimentary wine and small bites during the reception from 5:30 - 6:30

6:30 - 7:15 Poetry readings by contest finalists Charles Jensen, Gabrielle Myers, Helen Wickes followed by winner Michelle Bitting. Poets will be introduced by contest judge Zack Rogow.

7:15 - 8:00 Book signing following the readings

BOOK REVIEW by Kirkus Reviews

Bitting (Notes to the Beloved, 2017, etc.) offers a poetry collection that combines environmental, religious, and familial themes.

This lush new book of poems, which won the 2018 Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast poets, invites readers into a space thats both contemplative and visceral. From the very first work, An Hour North of Lee Vining, California, about fishing in the Golden State, the authors descriptions evoke vivid, lively settings. Religious imagery also abounds, from Gods rampant destruction in the book of Genesis to the stained glass, pews, and cup of Sunday services. Some of Bittings lines even read like prayers: I remember what matters. / Please dont ever remind me again. Motherhood emerges as a theme in the latter sections, as when Bittings speaker expresses awe at her offspring in Touched: I dont know how / we got so lucky / to say we know you well when / clearly you are from somewhere else. A father-son plumbing repair sparks equal amazement at how a fitful teenager became a man whos patient enough to unclog a sink in sometimes i want to look away. In Everything Crumbling Becoming Something New, the narrator alternately grieves and celebrates her daughters declaration that she wants to be a boy: woman now man / all your multitudes
Im learning to sing you, the poet writes. Throughout, the metaphors are masterful and fully engage all the readers senses; water balloons are watered organs that want to burst (What the Rain Made), female genitalia is a vinegar cave (The Slaying), and coffee is dark fluid sun (After). Bitting is a seductive writer who eases readers into the darkest depths; shes able to open a poem in the seemingly benign setting of a high school darkroom and end it with the untimely death of a brother in Yosemite. Fans of Sharon Olds, Margaret Atwoods, and Louise Erdrichs poetry will find much to admire in Bittings vulnerable, emotive free-verse style.

A glorious set that weaves together the ethereal, earthly, and mundane.

--Kirkus Reviews