Contributor News: Letitia Trent

Dear Poemeleon readers,

One of our contributors, Letitia Trent of the Open Issue, has a brand-new collection just out from Sundress Press. We hope you will take a look. Official press release below.

Congrats, Letitia!

~

One Perfect Bird
A Collection of Poems by Letitia Trent

Knoxville, TN— Sundress Publications is pleased to announce the release of Letitia Trent's One Perfect Bird (Sundress Publications $14.99) on January 1, 2012. This is Letitia’s first full-length collection of poetry. Trent is also the author of two chapbooks, Splice and The Medical Diaries, and a third, You aren’t in this movie, to be out in 2012.

"Reading these poems I was reminded of the voice and vision of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. Similarly, the emotional and psychological rawness of human thought, as crafted by Letitia Trent in surprising, elusive, and innovative lines, startles us into a recognition so profound, we're not entirely sure what we're reading or if we're reading. It's a pleasing and unsettling experience--and I daresay, what literature should and can be."

- Kathy Fagan, author of Lip

In Letitia Trent's debut collection, the poems unfold like wildflowers in the spring, each one more surprising and dazzling than the last. But they are not simply a fleeting beauty, but rather a voracious and heated sort that stays with you long after you've closed the book. These poems, rooted deeply in the places they explore, are impeccably constructed and bitingly honest. This is a collection from a new voice that must be heard.

"The poems in One Perfect Bird ride like a dirty living letter in a good, clean envelope. They are the silty Tang in our cups, the color of the hunters' vests like ribbons through the birches as they searched our forest for any rusty bursts of blood. They are primarily poltergeists; mesh net masks and subtly singing beards, bee bodies slipping from their chins like honey. If it's true that I lifted all these lines of praise from the lines in Letitia Trent's poems—and it is true—then who could blame me? For the lyricism required to describe them, I can't better their maker. No one could."

- Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil's Territory

Letitia Trent was the recipient of the 2010 Alumni Flash Writing Award from Ohio State University’s The Journal. She has also been awarded fellowships to The Vermont Studio Center and the MacDowell Colony. One Perfect Bird is currently available for pre-order through Sundress Publications at sundresspublications.com.

Comments

[Shelley]

It would be fun if you would post one of her poems.

[Cati Porter]

Hi Shelley --

If you click on Letitia's name (in green at the top of the post) that will take you to her page where several poems are displayed. Thanks for stopping by!

Cati