Morph and Bloom

by Wendy Wisner

Wendy Wisner’s second book of poems, MORPH AND BLOOM, finds joy and longing in each of nature’s transformations: the lives and deaths of flowers, a girl's passage to womanhood, loss and grief, and the turmoil and bliss of mothering.

"Wendy Wisner reminds us that a family, like the earth, has its seasons. She grafts the joys and worries of motherhood to bloom and to decay-a landscape lit at once by 'bourbon light' and 'margarine winter light.' Familial love and a devotion to the natural world braid into a gaze that alights on astonishing imagery: 'he sleeps in a goddess pose/and smells like hay.' These poems are reflective, often searing. These poems blossom again and again into a 'many-petaled' splendor."
- Eduardo C. Corral

" 'Rescue me now'...someone is being saved, someone is being sought in Wendy Wisner's MORPH AND BLOOM, though it isn't always clear who: the mother, the sister, the grandfather, the infant. Two generations of childhoods are layered against one another, as-in all their danger, all their physicality, all their light and dark sublimity- the early years of her mothering are shown to us. And there is absolutely no way to say it better than Wisner does-those years are spent 'clinging to the waves of a different sea.' "
- Sarah Vap

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2013

About the author

Wendy Wisner is the author of three books of poems, most recently The New Life, published by Cornerstone Press (University of Wisconsin Stevens-Point) and named a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year. Wendy’s poems, essays, and book reviews have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Spoon River Review, Passages North, THRUSH, Verse Daily, The Washington Post, Lilith Magazine, and elsewhere. Wendy is currently an Associate Editor at Rise Up Review.

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendy Wisner so eloquently captures the emotions and trials of pregnancy and motherhood in her poems - that almost unbearable love, the fear that comes with that love, the quotidian rhythm of our days and the tiredness they bring, the wonderment found within our bodies to nurture, the joy in watching one's children grow and the generational connections therein. Simply beautiful. I felt like I was truly in her head, experiencing what I experienced so many years ago. Universal, poignant, real - an excellent selection (or gift) for an expectant or new mother, or for one's own mother.

[Literary Mama]

In Morph and Bloom, Wendy Wisner (author of Epicenter and the chapbook Another Place of Rocking) presents poems that capture fleeting moments, strung like beads on a line that runs between childhood and motherhood. Wisner links the poems in this collection through her attention to detail, the vivid physicality of her imagery, and the figures who recur in one poem after another: the mother, the sister, the infant son, the mother’s absent father. These characters give structure to the collection, adding an intriguing whisper of narrative that moves through the poems.

Read Literary Mama's full review here: http://www.literarymama.com/reviews/a...

[Tara Outman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tremendously beautifully written, sensitive, candid and intimate poetic volume. I recommend it for anyone who loves the sounds that words make or anyone wanting to slip into a quiet place and meditate on motherhood, love, time, loss, life, grief, intimacy, bodies, change, boys, men, and the nature of feminine power. It can be read quickly in an afternoon or over many seasons savoring one sketch at time

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw but tender. Discusses emotions so fleeting I would have forgotten feeling them. Wendy uses perfect words to describe them so they become real all over again. Thanks for sharing yourself with your readers!

[Tessara Dudley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed for Mom Egg: http://www.themomegg.com/themomegg/Bo...