Holy Magic - Long, Priscilla

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Résumé :
Priscilla Long contains multitudes: scientific writer, art scholar, social activist, historical enthusiast, and well-published poet. If we are, as Muriel Rukeyser might compel us 'to learn the edges of darkness,' then we must also experience illuminations both resplendent and routine: light beaming on glorious yellows and bawdy purples, spiritual blues and restful greens. Reading this book, I feel as if I'm being skillfully guided by someone who knows art and, perhaps more vividly, believes in how art makes our lives more resonant-sometimes more pleasantly aware, sometimes more susceptible to pain, but always more fully felt. ~ Tod Marshall, Washington State Poet Laureate, 2016-2018 Holy Magic leans into the palette of our days and lays out the case, poem by poem, that the light vibrations that surround us are more than a scientific fact, they enter our bodies, trigger our imaginations, inform our moods, soothe our senses. In 'A Glass of Bitter Ale,' we see the yellow tinge of a bruise, a raincoat glistening with rain and consider the tonalities of pee. Hues echo and inform each other in these poems, much in the way life experiences paint and retouch a person's life. Long transmutes life's magic from color to syllables for our delight in these varied and inventive poems. From the tragic, via the mundane, to the sublime, Holy Magic hums in technicolor the song of our existence. ~ Claudia Castro Luna, Washington State Poet Laureate, 2018-2021

Biographie:
Priscilla Long grew up on a dairy farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She is a Seattle-based writer, poet, editor, and a longtime independent teacher of writing. She writes science, poetry, history, creative nonfiction, and fiction. She is author of nine books (to date), including the how-to write manual The Writer's Portable Mentor. Her work appears in numerous literary publications, both print and online, and her science column Science Frictions ran for 92 weeks online at The American Scholar. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Washington and serves as founding and consulting editor of HistoryLink.org, the free online encyclopedia of Washington state history. Her awards include a National Magazine Award (for feature writing), and ten of her essays have been honored as notable in various editions of The Best American Essays....