Tangible Creatures Poetry Collection

I've been waiting until December 6th to announce the release of my poetry collection, Tangible Creatures. I chose my mom's birthday because she was always the first person with whom I would share my ink dreams! 

*Flowery book blurb:

Entangle yourself in forty years of wandering as poet S.E. Page plunges deep within the root and rot intrinsic to existence while searching for worth. Even as time demands ever greater concessions from our bodies, Page muses on how we ink out fairy tales and folio to feed our imagination and make us whole again. Abandoning both heaven and hell, Page scours the deepest recesses of the universe and her heart to find a new way to transform the grief of losing her mother to the ineluctable march of mortality. Words and photography meld together as a worn soul-seeker marvels at the glamour and grit of life.

“Mother ash undone universe
Breathe into me—
(Just one more time)
But how does one plead with a ghost?
How dare I ask for some
MORE.”

The splendiferously talented Elizabeth Pinborough designed the cover for me based on a picture of my mother from her youth. It truly holds her essence; the free and gentle spirit torn away too soon from this sphere of existence. My poetry collection is woven throughout with meditations on my relationship with my mom, not just when she was alive, but also how it evolved after her sudden passing. Leaving my birth religion at age 33 was like experiencing her death for a second time, because my entire cosmic view of mortality and the afterlife was shattered. These poems play with those facets, and try to capture a slant of starlight before it vanishes on the edge of a sigh, a song, a page . . .

Cover Reveal!

Ever Bonnie

Tangible Creatures Cover-Sneak Peek!

This month has been pretty tough, so I'd like to end it on a note as soft as silver seeds and starry wishes. Here's a partial sneak peek at the cover of my poetry collection, Tangible Creatures, created by the stelliferous Elizabeth Pinborough!

The Story We Tell Ourselves

Growing up, I believed in a Star Trek future. That humanity would one day overcome their flaws and build a kinder world. But now that glimmering reality feels frayed as a thread that has almost snapped from our grasp forever as my confused roses bloom merrily in November.

 

Why do I write anything, anymore? I wonder. Maybe in the end the one we most want to tell a lovely story is our self. I don't think I have ever shared this poem before. I wrote it many years ago. 

 

BUT SAY IN A WORD 

 

A lovely lunacy thrives

between belief and breath,

yielding hope before

heart meets horizon,

searching out sacred spaces

behind the moon’s mirror,

dropping silent screaming

wishes to burn alive

in the dark beautiful

YET,

seeding stars for—

Today?

 

Such verdant follies,

I know!

 

Now,

"Might I have a bit of Earth?” 

 

 

 

*Title refers to Luke 7:7

*Last line from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

 

 

Night Roses

A poem found a home!

 Night Roses

 Night roses are better

than day blossoms—

unable to dazzle with

petal frill and flush,

sunlit senses must trade

eye light for the silk-soft

brush of shape in the dark,

perfume stirred sweet

by evening shadows,

and the quiet flutter

of flower bodies in time

with the twinkle

of starlight.

 

*Originally published in Northern Narratives 2024, p. 58.

September Saunter

 

Sometimes it’s good to walk where

the weeds grow taller than you

and the fray of flowers

belongs only to

the bees. 

 

 

 

Forty Years of Poetry

Here's a sneak peek at my hastily sketched cover art idea for Tangible Creatures. Nothing much, just forty years' worth of poems from my life. My poetry book will be coming out at the end of this year (probably in between Thanksgiving and Christmas). I can't wait to share the gorgeous abstract art cover being created right now, far lovelier than this little dream. Until then . . . use your imagination!

*A snippet from my poem "Every Imaginable Sun" . . . 

Mother ash undone universe

Breathe into me—

(Just one more time)

But how does one plead with a ghost?

How dare I ask for some

 MORE.

Unicorn Wisdom

Life lessons from the thrift store: even unicorns fall flat on their face sometimes! ✨ You just dust off your hooves and get up again. Meet my new deskmate/ paperweight, Ophelia. 

A Slow Summer Song

I had hoped to have the first draft of Agent Regalia finished by May 31st. Alas! I have this nasty habit of writing chapters that become too long and require expansion into new chapters. While the novel was originally supposed to be about 75k words, it will probably be closer to 100k by the time I am finished with it! I have about 6 chapters and 30k words to go. 

Part of the reason this WIP is taking me so long to finish is the sheer amount of crazy random research required for each individual chapter. Wedding fashion and customs, the frozen nitrogen heart of Pluto, blue sulfur fires on volcanoes, Brutalist architecture, enhydro crystals . . . this is a love story! But not just Regalia's love story. It's also my life-long love affair with science fiction and Star Wars, Star Trek, and Star Gate, etc. Everything I love about the zany, imaginative freedom of an adventure in space.  

I hope I can ink it right.

I hope I can write it. 

I'm grateful for all the pixie claps from family, friends, and my amazing SCBWI group that keep me chasing after Regalia. 

 

 

A Theme Song for a Story

I like to pick songs as the imaginary theme tracks for my stories.

For Bad Species: Diary of a Once and Future Human, my SF MG verse novel currently on submission, I instantly felt that Iniko's ethereal yet powerful song "Jericho" fit the theme perfectly! 

My story explores the life of thirteen-year-old Pearl, a girl born on a hostile world where humans will never belong. Descended from shipwreck survivors, she grew up on glorified ghost stories of Earth, but all she wants is to feel at home on Azuride even though she has always been taught to view her identity one way: 

"I am not really here, I'm an intrusion" (Stanza 2, Line 2, from Iniko's "Jericho"). 

For "the tell-tale traces of a different star" always betray Pearl in her "red, iron-rich blood." Red is a rare color on Azuride . . . a raw and jarring hue that is considered to be unnatural.   

Deep in her DNA, Pearl can't help feeling the pull of the planet her species lost even though she is hopelessly mired in the wreckage of a cruiser that will never fly again:

"My blood churns wild and raw inside me

as I make it to the captain’s chair first—

what is this energy, vast as starlight?

I almost feel like a blue sky human:

INVINCIBLE."

In "Jericho," Iniko sings of the longing to be a free voyager, too: "I got Milky Way for blood, evolution in my vein/I'm gone, I've been far away /I'ma lumineer now, makin' moves, startin' waves" (Stanza 1, Lines 2-4)

Pearl's journey in the ink is to discover the grit of true worth and strength at her core.