Rain Violent - Ann Spiers

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Résumé :
RAIN VIOLENT views the earth and its creatures in crisis. Each page holds one short poem paired with a weather symbol. The symbols inject the poems with a depth, a counterpoint, a link to specific climate phenomena. The sixty poems are essentially about climate crisis: political, mythical, surrealistic, scientific, personal. Animals, humans, and the natural and built landscapes create the content. Point of view and narrator shift from poem to poem, migrating through past, present and future scenarios. Tone also shifts from lyrical to strident, objective to personal, humor to tragedy. The weather symbols create tensions within a run of poems, such as Drizzle Slight, Drizzle Heavy, Drizzle Heavy Freezing. Citizen scientists and aeronautical professionals use these symbols, gleaned from the International Weather Symbols, on weather maps to denote conditions at local weather stations. Artist Bolinas Frank hand painted the symbols to emulate those hand drawn at the weather stations worldwide.

Biographie:
Ann Spiers lives on Vashon Island, across Puget Sound from Seattle, Washington. She is its inaugural poet laureate. Her poems appear widely in journals, anthologies, and on- line. In addition to RAIN VIOLENT (Empty Bowl, 2021), other works published in 2021 are Back Cut (Black Heron) and Harpoon (Triple Series, Ravenna). Her chapbooks include What Rain DoesBunker Trail (Finishing Line), and Long Climb into GraceThe Herodotus Poems (Brooding Heron) and Volcano Blue, Tide Turn, and A Wild Taste (May Day Press) are in the Special Collections of U. of Washington, Stanford U, London's British Library, Portland's Multnomah County Library, U of Puget Sound, Cynthia Sears Collection at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and many private collections. She has edited literary journals, produced writing festivals and reading series, judged/selected for contests and retreats, joined panels, served as a King County arts commissioner, and was awarded writing residences at UW's Whiteley Center, Hedgebrook, and Espy Foundation. As a workshop leader, she centers on craft and her participants' work and on the art and craft of chapbook art, its NW history, and writing of poem cycles. She is a practiced presenter. She attended the University of Washington, eventually earning a MA in English Lit and Creative Writing with focus on plays and poems.

Sommaire:
Ann Spiers lives on Vashon Island, across Puget Sound from Seattle, Washington. She is its inaugural poet laureate. Her poems appear widely in journals, anthologies, and on- line. In addition to RAIN VIOLENT (Empty Bowl, 2021), other works published in 2021 are Back Cut (Black Heron) and Harpoon (Triple Series, Ravenna). Her chapbooks include What Rain DoesBunker Trail (Finishing Line), and Long Climb into GraceThe Herodotus Poems (Brooding Heron) and Volcano Blue, Tide Turn, and A Wild Taste (May Day Press) are in the Special Collections of U. of Washington, Stanford U, London's British Library, Portland's Multnomah County Library, U of Puget Sound, Cynthia Sears Collection at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and many private collections. She has edited literary journals, produced writing festivals and reading series, judged/selected for contests and retreats, joined panels, served as a King County arts commissioner, and was awarded writing residences at UW's Whiteley Center, Hedgebrook, and Espy Foundation. As a workshop leader, she centers on craft and her participants' work and on the art and craft of chapbook art, its NW history, and writing of poem cycles. She is a practiced presenter. She attended the University of Washington, eventually earning a MA in English Lit and Creative Writing with focus on plays and poems....