All the Honey

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In All the Honey, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer holds
both fine, honest sensuality and slow explorations of
soul. What is shared here is a way forward in life, a fierce
openness that refuses nothing—that knows damage
and healing, darkness and radiance, sorrow and winged
resurgence, reflection and laughter and learning.

Genres: Poetry

113 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 2023

About the author

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal) and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Rosemerry has been writing and sharing a poem a day since 2006. Find her daily poems on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils or a curated version (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available on your phone with the Ritual app. She is the author of Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to deepen your writing practice, and her poetry album, Dark Praise, explores “endarkenment,” available anywhere you listen to music. Her most recent collection is The Unfolding.

Reviews

[Travis West · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's newest collection is a testament to a poet at the height of her powers of presence and attention, and of a human who is fearless in facing the fulness of her life—her grief, her joy, her failures, her triumphs—with compassion, curiosity, humor, honesty, and intense and capacious love.

As I’ve been reading through the book, I’ve been continually stunned, moved, awakened, encouraged, and so much more. This is a deeply wise and generous and compassionate and loving collection. One minute I'm crying, the next I'm laughing. One minute I'm putting the book down to ponder some new insight, followed moments later by holding the book to my heart and expressing a prayer of gratitude for the gift of this poet, whose poems make me want to be a better person and whose poetic imagination make me believe that kindness and love and shared connection really can change the world.

[Cherie Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

There really is no end date. I will probably never be “done” with this book. Rosemerry Trommer has experienced an unimaginable life blow, and will teach you through her poetry how to be strong when life knocks you down.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gorgeous collection by a woman who is able to endure unimaginable loss, never minimizing or dismissing it, yet still able to see and help us see the beauty in a nighttime cricket serenade.

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another marvelous collection from this wonderful contemporary poet. Many poems about grief and many about joy in the same book.

[Kelsie Jurin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I want to listen to your absence
the way i listen to the night—
the way the dark somehow
invites a deeper listening.”
What a tender exploration of holding multitudes at once, grief, joy, hope, despair, longing, and being. 12/10. “Power to the paradox.”

[Monica Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

For when people ask

I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

[Michael Sasson · Rating 5 out of 5]

P19. And if there's a pressing yes, then let it find me.

All the things. An emotional adult who isn't cranky decided to write some poems... I'm feeling very lucky/grateful that they were published.

[Savannah Ishmael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will literally cherish this book forever and read it all the time.

[Emily Goodson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet read by the beach and reminded so much of home with the author’s mountain depictions 🥰

[George Mccarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled on to the poem titled “For when people ask” by Rosemerry Trommer that was used as an introduction to a book titled The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr. After losing my wife of 46 years, this poem shattered me. I shared it with many friends. Then I decided to purchase my first poetry book that contained this poem and was also deeply touched by many of the poems in this book. After reading about her own catastrophic loss of her dear son, I could see how these poems oozed her grief onto these pages. I have never been interested in poetry in my life, but these poems involving grief, struck me like no other written work. I think she also opened the door for me to a whole new genre!!!

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a soulful, beautiful book by the deep-hearted and talented poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. The range of subject and tone is quite remarkable, evoking tears, chuckles, and awe. I plan to keep this collection on my night table and slowly make my way through its profoundly personal, vulnerable, uplifting offerings again and again. I’ll need to also go back and enjoy all her collections leading up to All the Honey.

[wulvz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, some good food.

I bought this book amidst falling in love with someone in August at the last bookstore in LA, started reading it at the end of September, and have found a new top 5 favorite contemporary poet of all time (by a long shot).

Rosemary Wahtola Trommer, the woman you are. Her ability to weave genius prose, with raw emotion, vulnerable story, with feelings, concepts, and a need for lightness every single person on earth that has dealt with their full range of emotions can relate to.

This book is a warm hug and repeated gut punch, a mirror to our ugly while reminding of us of how tangible beauty is (it’s all around us, all the time). How she can make grief feel fulfilling, sad days, bad days, loneliness, all feel necessary to being us, and inevitably being better (whole, together, loving, etc).

I am so happy to be giving a poetry book 5 stars, she deserves it, I’ll be buying every single compilation of hers now that this has been finished :-). So so happy and thankful for her words, her genius.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful collection from one of my favorite poets.
From "Watching My friend pretend her heart isn't Breaking," which brings me to my knees with her deep understanding of grief, to the sensual "I Want and interlude with Mr. Clean," which makes me laugh out loud, this volume spans a full range of human emotions.

[Wisconsin Alumni]

Rosemerry Trommer MA’94
Author

From the author:
In All the Honey, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer holds both fine, honest sensuality and slow explorations of soul. What is shared here is a way forward in life, a fierce openness that refuses nothing — that knows damage and healing, darkness and radiance, sorrow and winged resurgence, reflection and laughter and learning.

"In All the Honey, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer stands up to grief, the hardest of human tasks, allowing it to flow over her, welcoming it in the most straightforward and respectful way."
—Kate Munger, Founder of the Threshold Choir

"Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is what Rumi called 'a true human being' — a person in whose presence pain becomes medicine that awakens us to the effervescence of each moment."
—Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words

"Through Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s gaze of wonder, I am able to reclaim the landscape of loss as holy ground."
—Mirabai Starr, author of Caravan of No Despair and Wild Mercy

"Rosemerry Trommer is just quite possibly the easiest poet in America to fall in love with. She is the reason we have words like splendid, beautiful, delightful, marvelous. Every poem in All the Honey is a love poem, a heart song. This is a book you’re going to adore. I guarantee it."
—David Lee, author of Rusty Barbed Wire and more than two dozen other books of poetry

[Sarah Lavender Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I bought this collection, I started each day by reading a few poems from it. It had a profound, positive impact on my frame of mind for the rest of the day. Rosemerry's poetry is so relatable and touching. She gets me to look outside my window, or to observe mundane things, with an eye toward appreciating and contemplating the beauty, love, risk, meaning, and transient nature of everything. Honey, for example, is not just honey; it contains all the bitter pollen, and all the communal work of all those bees in nature, to make that sweetness. I strongly recommend this book, even or especially for those who think they don't like or "don't get" poetry.

[Salem · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Some days, a woman wishes the world would be more direct, more intimate, would just tell her her purpose, would spell it out in a language she knows."

A timeless and poignant collection spread over the full range of human emotions that has made me view life through a new set of eyes. Reading a couple poems each day has felt like the warmest, most comforting hug. Some standouts: "Losing It," "On a Clear Day," "The Softening," and "Seeking Purpose."

[Kaeley VZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book in days, and already have started to re-read it. This is easily my favorite book I’ve read this year.

[Ginny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding.

[Marc Mannheimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosemerry's poems are beautiful, little miracles that elucidate the transformative magic in her very real and present grief, in imperfect and broken things, in the human heart.

[Vanessa Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saved this gorgeous new collection by Rosemerry to read on Mother's Day. I've been a lover of Rosemerry's poetry for a few now...can't believe I only started experiencing her poetry such a short time ago! Her poetry is timeless, steeped in the places we 'meet' the robustness of life - love, nature, family, emotion. 'All The Honey' is a gift for the soul, for the heart, for humanity. I knew that this books would clamp onto my soul so I gave myself a full day to bask in the hook-up! Rosemerry is also one of the most beautiful mothers I know, and the way that she shares her experiences with the world through her poetry is courageous and genius. It was an honour to read her words, to join her heart and her grief, her silliness and her hope - oh her hope! - in this moving collection. People have a unique relationship with poetry, if they have one at all (oh, but I hope they have one!); Rosemerry's poetry is for the people, for humanity, for all the things that connect us, for the love, in a way that is accessible, courageous, vulnerable, humorous and gentle - with a depth that is real, pure and hopeful. If you know someone who is hoping to start a relationship with poetry, offer Rosemerry's poems! If you're looking to be swept up, twirled in love and hope, but also shaken a bit in the best way, read Rosemerry's poetry. Congratulations on another masterful collection, Rosemerry! Thank you for meeting us on the page!

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it.

I'm picky with my poetry. I don't care for things that are contrived or trying too hard. These poems flow with ease. Rosemerry explores topics in a way that makes me just fall back and listen. She also does not shy away from difficult topics (her son committed suicide).

I'm excited to read more of her works!

[Manuel Hernández · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to Rosemerry’s poetry by a coach at work. And she has become one of my favorite poets. This book shows her as a vulnerable human, inviting us to feel and be, in spite of the pain, the joy, the glow or the lack of light. But not only is the substance of her work full of depth: her writing has echoes of the greatest. Her poem “Endings For Beginners” had the brilliance of Cortázar.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only a short way into this feast, I'm already giving it five stars because even if the rest is gibberish, which I am confident it is not, it is a timeless, priceless work of spirit, art and genius. How fortunate I am to have crossed paths with Rosemerry and her exquisite way with words.

[Renée Roehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend!

[DChristina]

Heartbreaking and Heartwarming ~ a beautifully written tribute to walking through life one step at a time, living Life fully and deeply with grief. I could only read one poem at a time.