Tag Archives: book release

by Luanne | August 26, 2024 · 12:21 pm

Simple Pleasures: My Review of the New Elizabeth Gauffreau Poetry Collection

What a pleasure to open Elizabeth Gauffreau’s new book, Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right. Every page features a beautiful nature photo with an accompanying haiku. Combining poem with image creates a new art genre, one where each component gives more meaning to the other.

The first page displays a peaceful dirt road surrounded by evergreens. The poet invites the reader to accompany her on this trip through the natural beauty of the northeastern United States:

dirt road adventure

washboard, slapping branches, ruts

GPS turned off

I love that the GPS is turned off so that instead of following technology, we—poet and reader—are opening ourselves to the adventure.

Gauffreau directs us to majestic vistas, but she also points out the small or almost unnoticeable, such as a dappled woods image where you must look carefully or be directed by the poem:

new-growth pines, maples

farmer’s forgotten stone wall

a forest reclaimed

I learned things from the poems, which should not be surprising as Gauffreau seems so at home in the region.

stand of white birches

roots entwined canopy shared

indigenous trees

I hadn’t thought of birches as being Indigenous, so that was a bit of defamiliarizing the familiar, I suppose, as it made me take note. And it reminded me of the Robert Frost (another New England poet) poem, “Birches.”

The book is organized by the seasons of the year and makes a full cycle of the beauty of the area. Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right makes a gorgeous addition to my collection of Elizabeth Gauffreau books, Telling Sonny and Grief Songs. Heads up, though, I would recommend purchasing the paperback version because you will want to flip open the book often.

###

Author Biography

Elizabeth Gauffreau writes fiction and poetry with a strong connection to family and place. Her work has been widely published in literary magazines, as well as several themed anthologies. Her short story “Henrietta’s Saving Grace” was awarded the 2022 Ben Nyberg prize for fiction by Choeofpleirn Press.

She has published a novel, Telling Sonny, and a collection of photopoetry, Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance. She is currently working on a novel, The Weight of Snow and Regret, based on the closing of the last poor farm in Vermont in 1968.

Liz’s professional background is in nontraditional higher education, including academic advising, classroom and online teaching, curriculum development, and program administration. She received the Granite State College Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2018. Liz lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire with her husband. Find her online at https://lizgauffreau.com.

Book2Read Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/SimplePleasures

Print & Fixed EPUB for tablets and Kindle Fire

BookFunnel PDF Purchase Link: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/gef1ili6qd

For any device.

Blog Tour Host Links: https://lizgauffreau.com/simple-pleasures-blog-tour-links/

31 Comments

Filed under #bloggingcommunity, #poetrycommunity, #thesealeychallenge, Book Review, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Syllabic Poetry

Tagged as #thesealeychallenge, book release, book review, Elizabeth Gauffreau, Haiku, nature poetry, New England nature photography, Simple Pleasures, syllabic poetry

by Luanne | August 12, 2024 · 5:15 am

Simple Pleasures Blog Tour: Day #7 – August 12 – Luanne Castle

Introduction

Thank you, Luanne, for hosting me on Day #7 of my blog tour for Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right! For this tour stop, I’m going to say a few words about my philosophy of haiku to give readers a sense of what to expect from Simple Pleasures.

I think it’s important for me as a writer of poetry and fiction to understand the literary context in which I’m writing–both the current context of what writers in a particular genre are creating and the literary tradition which brought the genre to this point.

When I first became interested in haiku as syllabic poetry, I was surprised to learn that haiku in English is a very slippery beast to pin down. There are purists who adhere to the 5-7-5 syllable count, the season word (kigo) and the pause that cuts the haiku into two parts (kireji). The Haiku Society of America, on the other hand, espouses the spirit of the Japanese form without trying to replicate the Japanese language-based form in English. (https://www.hsa-haiku.org/hsa-definitions.html)

Then there’s this guy, Vermont poet Geof Hewitt, who decides to make his own rules. (Geof is a performance poet whom I met when he visited my tenth-grade English class in 1971. Then, in the early 2,000s, I took a performance poetry workshop with him, which was great fun. I even got a new poem out of it!)

https://vimeo.com/991080595/fe5211dfc3

Excerpted from: https://www.vermonthumanities.org/words-in-woods-hewitt/

So where does this leave me? I think I’m safe in saying that I follow the Haiku Society of America’s definition of haiku: “A haiku is a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition.”

I adhere to the 5-7-5 syllabic structure because it serves me well as the means by which I discover and express that essence. Any exception I may make to the syllable count is minor, when the poem just doesn’t scan right. Most of my haiku include a kigo, although my interpretation of season may extend to seasons of life.

The simple pleasures of our favorite places in nature are gifts of the spirit to be shared with others. In this collection of 53 haiku, each paired with a photograph, poet Liz Gauffreau invites readers to come with her to some of her favorite places in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Some places are long-time favorites going back years; others have become favorites by virtue of inspiring poetry.

Author Biography

Book2Read Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/SimplePleasures

Print & Fixed EPUB for tablets and Kindle Fire

BookFunnel PDF Purchase Link: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/gef1ili6qd

For any device.

Blog Tour Host Links: https://lizgauffreau.com/simple-pleasures-blog-tour-links/

58 Comments

Filed under #bloggingcommunity, #poetrycommunity, #thesealeychallenge, Book promotion, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Syllabic Poetry

Tagged as #thesealeychallenge, book release, Elizabeth Gauffreau, Haiku, Simple Pleasures, syllabic poetry

by Luanne | March 7, 2023 · 12:03 pm

#Tanka Tuesday and Poetry Reading

See below for the video that goes with this fireplace photo.

Today Colleen’s prompt for #TankaTuesday involved writing a syllabic poem using a photo by https://secondwindleisure.com/about-me/ as a prompt.

I’ve been wanting to try a cherita, which is 3 stanzas–one line, two lines, three lines. So this is what I came up with.

I can hear the thunder and spray before I see it.

Then it appears before me in its many textures
of wood and stone and the glorious movement of water.

As I stand on the viewing platform overlooking all,
the mist parts from the water, rising up toward 
the blue sky, hugging me in its wet embrace.

Then I started to question if a cherita was really syllabic poetry because you don’t count the syllables, so I quickly came up with a haiku to make sure I’m covered!

powerful water
sheeting down to be as one
with its still-wild self

The publisher, Alien Buddha Press, of Our Wolves has created a YouTube playlist of authors reading from their new books. I read four poems from the chapbook. Oh, and if you do check it out, watch for when I say the most UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNIEST thing. Hint: it has to do with whether Antarctica has folk and fairy tales.

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Wolves-Luanne-Castle/dp/B0BTKNP31D/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8PAK9E03LTBV&keywords=our+wolves&qid=1677978570&sprefix=our+wo%2Caps%2C355&sr=8-1&asin=B0BTKNP31D&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

25 Comments

Filed under #TankaTuesday, Fairy Tales, Our Wolves, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Poetry reading, Publishing, Writing

Tagged as #fracturedfairytale, #OurWolves, #TankaTuesday, Alien Buddha Press, book release, cherita, Haiku, Our Wolves, Poetry, poetry chapbook, poetry collection, poetry reading, Red Riding Hood

by Luanne | March 6, 2023 · 5:15 am

Day 2 of Our Wolves Release

On this day 2 of the 2-day release of Our Wolves, I would like to share an interview by journalist Deborah Kalb on her book blog. In this interview, she asks questions that probe the origins of the project, including why I chose Red Riding Hood as my “fractured fairy tale.”

https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2023/03/q-with-luanne-castle.html?fbclid=IwAR3PRNHUs0FQRKtPml2ObZ1cGMmTVYQUI8ARSOjf6QdC5qefzl_CoLOxarY

Here’s a photo of the champagne I shared with the gardener yesterday for the launch. Note that he tried to order me yellow gerbera daisies which would have been in the photo, but he called Saturday and the florist had already left for the day. So he owes me flowers.

18 Comments

Filed under Fairy Tales, Interview, Our Wolves, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Publishing, Writing

Tagged as #fracturedfairytale, Alien Buddha Press, book release, Deborah Kalb, interview, Our Wolves, Poetry, poetry chapbook, poetry collection, Red Riding Hood

by Luanne | March 5, 2023 · 9:35 am

Our Wolves is Featured on Sally’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine!

Today is Release Day for Our Wolves. You can read more about it on Sally’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine here:

https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2023/03/05/smorgasbord-book-promotions-new-book-on-the-shelves-poetry-our-wolves-by-luanne-castle/

A big thank you to Sally!

Today is the Day

Today is Release Day for Our Wolves. Today and tomorrow. I wanted March 5 because the date has personal significance to me. It’s the anniversary of the first date my husband and I went on, and the chapbook is dedicated to him. Because today is a Sunday, I consider tomorrow Release Day, too!

I hope you will consider heading over to Amazon to pick up a copy of this lil big-mouthed book.

Merril D. Smith Reviews Rooted and Winged

I love this review of Rooted and Winged by Merril D. Smith. Thank you so much, Merril.

Review: Rooted and Winged by Luanne Castle

10 Comments

Filed under #poetrycommunity, #writingcommunity, Blogging, Book Review, Inspiration, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Rooted and Winged, Writing

Tagged as #poetrycommunity, #writingcommunity, book release, book review, images of light, Merril D. Smith, Poetry, poetry collection, Rooted and Winged

by Luanne | January 4, 2023 · 5:30 am

Suanne Schafer Reviews Rooted and Winged

Thank you to novelist Suanne Schafer’s review of Rooted and Winged.

https://suanneschaferauthor.com/book-review-rooted-and-winged/?fbclid=IwAR0izd8PeAZVPM_Qu5uggL9Z1noinxYST0VptmAH9m3Ynr-9jiTk6gBOa_M

You can find Suanne’s novels here: https://suanneschaferauthor.com/bibliography/

15 Comments

Filed under #poetrycommunity, #writingcommunity, Blogging, Book Review, Inspiration, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Rooted and Winged, Writing

Tagged as #poetrycommunity, #writingcommunity, book release, book review, Poetry, poetry collection, Rooted and Winged, Suanne Schafer

by Luanne | December 12, 2022 · 4:55 pm

Elaine Pinkerton Coleman Reviews Rooted and Winged

Thank you, Elaine Pinkerton Coleman, for the review of Rooted and Winged and other books on her blog. Her blog is a wonderful mix of posts about travel, New Mexico, and adoption.

https://elainepinkerton.wordpress.com/2022/12/12/reading-the-nights-away/