Yellow Doors: Poems

by Ruth Goring

Each poem in Ruth Goring's debut collection opens a door into undiscovered urgent rivers, wordless giants, soul-stirring music, fathers never known, voices that beckon and fade. Here are sorrow and sweetness, heartbreak and hope. The mundane is here, and also the numinous. At times they switch places. And in the strangeness of these landscapes the familiar is revisioned.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

A poet and an author-illustrator of children’s picture books were the first things I remember wanting to do when I grew up. A lot of life had to happen to me before those dreams could ripen—straddling two cultures, adopting and birthing children (one each way), love and loss, poverty, beauty, spiritual searching. I’m grateful for it all, and I’m hungry for more (as the song goes, “more love, more power, / more of You in my life”). My books and poems are expressions of that hunger.

Dearworthy, my little book of meditations on the beautiful writings of Julian of Norwich, each with a botanical image, was published in 2024 by Anamchara Books.

Isaiah and the Worry Pack, a children's picture book, was an inaugural IVP Kids publication in 2021. My author/illustrator debut, Picturing God (Beaming Books, 2019), was a Junior Literary Guild selection. And my beloved first picture book, Adriana's Angels / Los ángeles de Adriana, was published in 2017 by Sparkhouse Family / Augsburg Fortress; the Spanish edition won a silver Moonbeam Award that same year.

Yellow Doors, my first poetry collection, was published by WordFarm (2003-4); my second is Soap Is Political (Glass Lyre, 2015). I got to discuss Soap Is Political and read a few poems from the book in an interview with Jerome McDonnell of Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview program here: https://www.wbez.org/stories/ruth-gor.... My poems have appeared in CALYX, Pilgrimage, Comstock Review, RHINO, Iron Horse Literary Review, New Madrid, Crab Orchard Review, numerous other journals, and several anthologies. It's a privilege to have a poem in Martín Espada's 2019 anthology What Saves Us (NWU Press).

I grew up in Colombia and in recent years have traveled back to provide accompaniment and advocacy to Colombian peace communities and human rights defenders. And just to be with dear friends and glory in rivers, waterfalls, and the Andes mountains.

Reviews

[Sundry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful collection of poems that are grounded in the natural world. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting outside last night reading this chapbook.

I paused often to savor the sounds of the words together, the images, the ideas. Even found myself hmmmming with pleasure or surprise. I left my copy at home, or I’d quote you some.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic little, and I emphasize little, book of poems. I own many fat poetry books with fewer great poems in them than this one has so I guess I can't complain. Makes me hungry for more from Goring.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Potent, passionate, playful
poems pleading for a fuller flare.