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Holy Magic
poetry collection
91 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
3 people want to read
About the author
Priscilla Long
22 books41 followersPriscilla Long is author of The Writer’s Portable Mentor (University of New Mexico Press), Cartographies of Home: Poems (MoonPath), Dancing with the Muse in Old Age (Coffeetown), Holy Magic: Poems (MoonPath) Minding the Muse: A Handbook for Painters, Composers, Writers, and Other Creators (Coffeetown), a book of essays titled Fire and Stone: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (University of Georgia Press), Crossing Over: Poems (University of New Mexico Press), and Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America’s Bloody Coal Industry (Paragon House).
Priscilla is a Seattle-based writer of poetry, essays, creative nonfictions, fictions, science, and history. Her awards include a National Magazine Award. Her rigorous and extremely popular classes are always full for the good reason that her writers routinely become more skilled and get more published. Her scholarly history book is Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry (Paragon House). Author's website: www.PriscillaLong.com. Photo by Anne Herman
Priscilla is a Seattle-based writer of poetry, essays, creative nonfictions, fictions, science, and history. Her awards include a National Magazine Award. Her rigorous and extremely popular classes are always full for the good reason that her writers routinely become more skilled and get more published. Her scholarly history book is Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry (Paragon House). Author's website: www.PriscillaLong.com. Photo by Anne Herman
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 20, 2023
Brilliant studies of sound and color.
November 11, 2025
great work to my fellow science teacher/poet in arms
January 4, 2021
For the entire review please see: https://www.seattlestar.net/2020/09/p...
Here is the beginning of my review at The Seattle Star:
Priscilla Long’s Holy Magic
BY PAMELA HOBART CARTER
25 SEPTEMBER, 2020
Holy Magic by Priscilla Long, published by Moon Path Press, 2020
Winner of the 2020 Sally Albiso Poetry Book Award
• The opening quotation
Let wise men piece the world together with wisdom
Or poets with holy magic
Hey-di-ho.
Wallace Stevens
The source of Priscilla Long’s title tells something of her methods as a word-world builder. She is a practitioner of collage and catalog, of oral readings and artist communion, of scrupulous research and meticulous observation.
Wallace’s “Hey-di-ho,” a nonsensical musical line, places her focus on sound, on performance, on sharing art—as does the cover photo (by a member of her Seattle-area writers cohort, M. Anne Sweet) of the music stand on an empty stage, awaiting the arrival of the poet—in front of the reader, before the lights go up.
• The Table of Contents
Long divides her collection of 91 pages into 7 sections. Each section title includes a hue or suggests one. Find red, orange, grape-colored, blue, jade, bitter ale (I see amber), night and sun (I see black and white/bright). I anticipate explorations of color.
• The Holy Magic
56 poems, more than 6 pages of notes, more than 30 quotations.
Among the poems are many ekphrastics, some inspired by familiar artists, such as Picasso and Matisse, and others by lesser-knowns, such as Margaret Tomkins and Leonora Carrington. The poems and their epigraphs web-weave relationships between visual arts and artists, writing and writers, writings of artists, and memory, imagination, and observation. There are history poems and paleontology poems, celebrations and remembrances. The magic involves indigo, coal, Trayvon Martin, and T-Rex.
Here is the beginning of my review at The Seattle Star:
Priscilla Long’s Holy Magic
BY PAMELA HOBART CARTER
25 SEPTEMBER, 2020
Holy Magic by Priscilla Long, published by Moon Path Press, 2020
Winner of the 2020 Sally Albiso Poetry Book Award
• The opening quotation
Let wise men piece the world together with wisdom
Or poets with holy magic
Hey-di-ho.
Wallace Stevens
The source of Priscilla Long’s title tells something of her methods as a word-world builder. She is a practitioner of collage and catalog, of oral readings and artist communion, of scrupulous research and meticulous observation.
Wallace’s “Hey-di-ho,” a nonsensical musical line, places her focus on sound, on performance, on sharing art—as does the cover photo (by a member of her Seattle-area writers cohort, M. Anne Sweet) of the music stand on an empty stage, awaiting the arrival of the poet—in front of the reader, before the lights go up.
• The Table of Contents
Long divides her collection of 91 pages into 7 sections. Each section title includes a hue or suggests one. Find red, orange, grape-colored, blue, jade, bitter ale (I see amber), night and sun (I see black and white/bright). I anticipate explorations of color.
• The Holy Magic
56 poems, more than 6 pages of notes, more than 30 quotations.
Among the poems are many ekphrastics, some inspired by familiar artists, such as Picasso and Matisse, and others by lesser-knowns, such as Margaret Tomkins and Leonora Carrington. The poems and their epigraphs web-weave relationships between visual arts and artists, writing and writers, writings of artists, and memory, imagination, and observation. There are history poems and paleontology poems, celebrations and remembrances. The magic involves indigo, coal, Trayvon Martin, and T-Rex.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews