Mud River

by Judy Light Ayyildiz, K. Kamal Ayyildiz (Illustrator)

"Mud River is memorable...capable of telling a horror story...especially when plopping the thing into a basket of flowers."-Black Water Review "...fun-how often do we get to recommend poetry with that?...reckless rapture...works...Some quicker, wilder efforts are nearly inimitable...adventurous metaphors."-Fred Chappell, author, Professor UNC "...unforced and authentic, pretty rare today...It's all in Ayyildiz's diction-style, lyric sounds...taut lines, details, images, no false word choices...incisive...real..."-William Packard, NY Quarterly "...Joseph Heller told No Laughing Matter. Ayyildiz equals-in ways surpasses-his account in Nothing but Time."-Walter James Miller, author, NYU Professor Emeritus

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Judy Light Ayyildiz, a graduate of the Hollins University Creative Writing Program, has taught creative writing to all education levels. As a graduate of the Marshall University Teachers College with a major in voice, she spent many years in classrooms and on stage as performer, director, and conductor. She has been an instructor and presenter at literary workshops, international conferences on poetry, writing, and women’s studies. Internationally published and translated, she was an editor of Artemis, Artists and Writers from the Blue Ridge for 13 years, a Blue Ridge Writers Conference founder, President of the Medical Auxiliary and founder/director of the acclaimed RAMA Chorus. Author of 11 books in 5 genres include Forty Thorns a novel (translated into Turkish), poetry Mud River, and memoir Nothing but Time, A Triumph over Trauma.New York Quarterly, Mickle Street Review, the new renaissance, Sow’s Ear, Pig Iron Press, Hawaii Pacific Review, Black Water Review, Northeast Journal, Kalliope, The McGuffin, the Nazim Hikmet Festival Chapbook. Judy was featured in professional biographies in Women in Dialogue, an international anthology, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and in Kirklareli’ni Gecmisten Gelecege Tasiyanlar (Outstanding Persons Who Have Come and Gone in Kirklareli,Turkey) by historian Nazif Karacam, and story translated into Italian in the anthology, International Women Writing Today, Rubbettino Editore, 2007. Honors include YWCA Women of Achievement in Education, Virginia Commission of the Arts grants, various poetry short story prizes, Daughters of Ataturk award, Turkish Forum award, College Bookstores Best Book nominee, Gusto Poet Discovery Winner, VCCA Fellow, and JPX International Literary Novel 1st Place. A volume of poetry Intervals, Appalachia to Istanbul is forthcoming spring 2015. Judy has been married for over 50 years to a surgeon. She and her husband, Vedii, have three talented and creative children and two extraordinary grandchildren. Judy is currently completing a memoir titled, The West Virginia Diet.

Reviews

[Zuska · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this collection; some of the poems were outstanding, many were good, a handful were so-s0, but all in all it was definitely worth it. Found a first edition copy in Book No Further in Roanoke, VA, which is a sweet little bookstore with a helpful staff member who enjoys chatting about books. As a result I walked out with an armful. Oh no! not more books! Yes! More books! Always!