talisman

by Chansonette Buck

Famed New York poet and editor George Wallace says of "One cannot fail to be impressed with the courage of poets who lay bare their most troubling personal moments in their work. But it requires a special level of courage—and talent, as in adroitness of expression and dispassionate perspective—for such poets to stand out in the crowd. That's Chansonette Buck's achievement in this fine little collection. Yes, she has experienced pain, risen from it and found sustenance in the telling. But more than that, she has approached the telling with an unflinching eye and a sure technical hand, and produced poem after memorable poem." Chansonette Buck, who holds a PhD in English from the University of California, has been published in, among others, Why We Women Writers on the Horses in Their Lives (Seal Press, 2011) and Polarity eMagazine (Fall, 2010). Previous chapbooks include blood oranges (NBP, 2011) and desire lines (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2012). This collection contains poems dealing with Buck's emotional healing from childhood sexual abuse, and is packed with honesty and heart. talisman is 32 pages long and contains 20 poems. The cover is a pale ecru with a brilliant turquoise blue cardstock insert, and the text is printed on a creamy, soft-white paper. The cover and inside pages feature photos taken from a beautiful mixed-media collage by book artist Bonné de Blas. Get your copy today!

32 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2013

About the author

Chansonette Buck holds the PhD in English from UC Berkeley. She earned an BFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where she won both of two juried prizes for her works on paper at a New England Regional show. Winner of the first Judith Stronach Prize in Poetry at Berkeley and a two-time Pushcart nominee, Dr. Buck has authored four chapbooks of poetry as well as a memoir of her time growing up “on the road” with “the great minds of [that] generation” as stepchild of Black Mountain School poet Edward Dorn. She is an ordained minister and certified spiritual healer and is adept in many energy healing modalities. As Principal Prose Wrangler in her consultancy Appaloosa WordCraft, she helps public policy think tanks and nonfiction authors with research, writing, and editing. A California Bay Area expat, she now lives in Southern Oregon’s magnificent Rogue Valley with her family. Ouroboros: Memoir of a Dreamwalker is her first full-length collection. Another will be following from Hand to Mouth Press soon.