The Wire Fence Holding Back the World

by Martin Willitts Jr.

Winner of the 2016 Turtle Island Quarterly Editor's Choice Chapbook Award. According to Jared Smith, "These tightly coiled lyric poems are born of the earth, and of the interface between observation, intellect, faith, and logic. They are of childhood and old age, of butterflies and songbirds and turtles, and of the mountains and grasses…all those things that are ignited and illumined by the sun. But this is not a gentle sun. It is a sun made jagged and sharp, that shatters against darkness. It turns the leaves of summer into dust and it drags life down into the darkness that shrouds it. Yet as Martin’s vision shows, even in carrion there is life and light coming forth from that darkness that thrives on it. And even as the last light drops from our fingers, that light is a seed that peers over the horizon for all that will follow. This is a profound book of hope and belief in those things that are bigger than we know of."

42 pages, Paperback

First published December 19, 2016

About the author

Martin Willitts Jr. is a retired Senior Librarian in upstate New York. He has been nominated for five Pushcart awards and two Best Of The Net awards. His print chapbooks include Falling in and out of Love (Pudding House Publications, 2005), Lowering Nets of Light (Pudding House Publications, 2007), The Garden of French Horns (Pudding House Publications, 2008), Baskets of Tomorrow (Flutter Press, 2009), The Girl Who Sang Forth Horses (Pudding House Publications, 2010), Van Gogh's Sunflowers for Cezanne (Finishing Line Press, 2010), and SECRETS NO ONE MUST TALK ABOUT (Dos Madres Press, 2011). He has the online chapbooks Farewell—the journey now begins, News from the Front, and Words&Paper. His full-length books are The Secret Language of the Universe (March Street Press, 2006) and The Hummingbird (March Street Press, 2009), and THE UNCERTAIN LOVER (Dos Madres Press, 2018). ~ Amazon bio