{"id":613,"date":"2024-10-01T11:14:31","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T17:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/?p=613"},"modified":"2024-10-01T11:14:34","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T17:14:34","slug":"prairie-spirits-wide-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/prairie-spirits-wide-release\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Spirit(s) Wide Release"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Order now!<\/h2>\n

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I am very excited to be able to share this poetry collection today! I released this exclusively on my Patreon some time ago, but as of today it is available to the big, wide world as well \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Rather than reinvent the wheel, please allow me to share the Introduction from this collection with you here.<\/p>\n

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Introduction<\/h3>\n

In April 2021 the theme I\u2019d given myself for Robert Lee Brewer\u2019s April Poem-a-Day challenge was \u2018Agrarian Decay\u2019 which I chose largely because I wanted to write about where I grew up in rural southern Alberta.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spoken frequently about the conflict I feel about where I come from\u2013in so many ways I was a terrible fit for many of the people I was surrounded with growing up, but that hasn\u2019t decreased the connection I feel with the place<\/em>. And as I sat down to begin this PAD challenge I was homesick (landsick?). I hadn\u2019t been any further from my home in Edmonton than I could walk in over a year because of a combination of the pandemic and problems with my right hip. So I was nostalgic and yearning and I thought I\u2019d write about where I came from.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I should have chosen \u2018Homesick\/landsick\u2019 as my theme but I love the word \u2018Agrarian\u2019 and while looking for something to pair it with Decay just fit. So I thought, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s explore this then\u2026 it\u2019s not exactly about where you came from, but it could be a fun filter to look at it through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first poems I wrote were full of frozen moments that included abandoned homes scoured grey by wind and time, wooden wagons with wheels buried up to the axle at the corner of a field and rusted out bodies of cars lined up in a row from oldest to newest. But it only took until day three before the first ghost appeared.<\/p>\n

I invited it in, wrote about it (that poem eventually grew up to be \u201cThe Longest Journey\u201d) and then sent it on its way while I attempted another non-speculative poem about my chosen theme.<\/p>\n

The next day some demons showed up\u2013just sort of appeared fully formed on the page. I exorcised them from my brain to the page in a poem that eventually became \u201cRelic\u201d and tried to get back to my theme. Alas, then there were werewolves, and more ghosts\u2026 I got back to something non-speculative a few days later but even though it was rural it didn\u2019t fit my theme.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I finally got it. The theme wasn\u2019t going to work. I wasn\u2019t writing about agrarian decay, I was writing about the prairies\u2013about the spirit of the prairies as recalled from my childhood as I stewed in a very particular combination of nostalgia, sadness and homesickness, and also about fictional spirits<\/em> which might inhabit that landscape.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve gathered together some of the best examples of what I wrote for my new theme\u2013Prairie Spirit(s)\u2013into this collection, and tucked in a few poems I\u2019d written before that also fit.<\/p>\n

The resulting collection is mostly speculative (meaning it has elements of fantasy, science fiction or horror) but has some non-genre poems sprinkled throughout, as well as one or two which straddle the line between and can fully be interpreted either way.<\/p>\n

Almost all of these poems are dark and many deal with death (including of children and animals) so they might be best taken in small doses with your shields in place unless, of course, you prefer stepping into the haunted house with no flashlight. To each their own.<\/p>\n

Rhonda Parrish
Edmonton, Alberta
10\/29\/2022<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe collection of poems impressed me with its wide variety, as it explored different facets of the supernatural (or, more specifically, the human spirit). There were moments of humor, horror, sorrow, and nostalgia scattered throughout. I appreciated how the seasons of prairies and landscapes were seamlessly woven into the supernatural themes and language of the poem. The imagery was abundant, and I recognized and appreciated every detail.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Order now! Payhip Amazon Kobo B&N Patreon I am very excited to be able to share this poetry collection today! I released this exclusively on my Patreon some time ago, but as of today it is available to the big, wide world as well \ud83d\ude42 Rather than reinvent the wheel, please allow me to share […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[87,26],"class_list":["post-613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-prairie-spirits","tag-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poiseandpen.com\/publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}