Your Mother's Bear Gun

by Corrie Williamson

The poems in Corrie Williamson's Your Mother’s Bear Gun exist in thresholds, in liminal spaces: emotional and physical landscapes at the blurring of safety and danger, the point where preservation of self becomes harm to others. This collection explores the rugged wildernesses of Oregon, Montana, and Appalachia, inviting the reader to consider what it means to be human in a rough and hungry world. How do we protect ourselves? How do we care for each other? We pay attention, Corrie Williamson suggests. We listen. We let the wild light into our bones.

Genres: Poetry

105 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2025

About the author

Corrie Williamson was born on a small farm in southwestern Virginia. Her first book, Sweet Husk, won the 2014 Perugia Press Prize, and was a finalist for the 2015 Library of Virginia Poetry Award. Her second book, The River Where You Forgot My Name, was selected by Allison Joseph for the 2018 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, and will be released in September of 2019. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia, with a BA in Poetry and Anthropology, and her MFA in Poetry from the University of Arkansas, where she was a recipient of the Walton Fellowship, and a Director of the Writers in the Schools Program. She has taught writing at the University of Arkansas, Helena College, and Carroll College. Nominated for Best New Poets and multiple Pushcart Prizes, she is the recipient of a James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry. In 2020, she'll be the resident at the PEN Northwest/Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency on the Rogue River in Oregon. Her poems have appeared in journals such as The Missouri Review, AGNI, Poetry Daily, Shenandoah, and many others. She lives in Helena, Montana.

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a link to one on Kenyon Review:

https://kenyonreview.org/piece/corrie...

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Your Mother's Bear Gun is unvarnished, alive with place and living in it, wordplay, and imagery that is as ingenious as it is surprising and spot-on. The poems put their ear to the ground and hear it thrum. They are incredible observers and listeners, inward as well as outward.

[Sarah W · Rating 5 out of 5]

and Williamson, again, gives us a basket of wildest glittering gifts. this book holds such delicious lines and images as, “The elk turn as one body, raise the heavy soft / petals of their ears…” and “oysters — muscle puddles in their moon cups.” it is thick and generous and I absolutely recommend it, especially to fellow earthfolk ~