Books
The Long Grass
Strange Gravity
Strange Gravity is a book of transformations. Ordinary people, ordinary actions, are lit with visionary imagination. A man is polishing a Cadillac, "needing something that shined to his touch." When bad weather ends, "every slouches/an inch toward kindness." Small miracles, yet who of us can see this far, tapping into the stream just beneath ongoing life, where you reach in, the exact right place under the surface? Girls in a car put on make-up, "holding everywhere you've been in the mirrored palm of your hand." Lisa Rhoades tells us who we are, so many selves; a deceptive simplicity, snaring with delicate tendrils, clinching with exact metaphors, hitting the mark in poem after poem.
Elaine Terranova, Awards Judge
Into Grace
Winner of the 2002 Riverstone Poetry Chapbook Award, Into Grace contains the individual award winning poems Into Grace (Poet Lore), New Poem, Wrecked, and Ugly poem (2000 Vachel Lindsay Award from Willow Springs), and Dark Field (Sow's Ear 2001 Poetry prize).
Out of print
Books
The Long Grass
Lisa Rhoades's The Long Grass is the poetry of a feminist woman of faith, whose poetic fire was rekindled after the sudden early death of a close friend. These poems are of a piece with her earlier book, Strange Gravity, yet they represent another vision, another music that is at once calm and urgent, and absolutely breathtaking. Hr poetry breathes in the air that is music even as it sings the question "Why must the damaged world / impinge on this November day?" Her poems are the haunting psalms of our difficult days.
Aliki Barnstone, Poet Laureate of Missouri
Strange Gravity
Strange Gravity is a book of transformations. Ordinary people, ordinary actions, are lit with visionary imagination. A man is polishing a Cadillac, "needing something that shined to his touch." When bad weather ends, "every slouches/an inch toward kindness." Small miracles, yet who of us can see this far, tapping into the stream just beneath ongoing life, where you reach in, the exact right place under the surface? Girls in a car put on make-up, "holding everywhere you've been in the mirrored palm of your hand." Lisa Rhoades tells us who we are, so many selves; a deceptive simplicity, snaring with delicate tendrils, clinching with exact metaphors, hitting the mark in poem after poem.
Elaine Terranova, Awards Judge
Into Grace
Winner of the 2002 Riverstone Poetry Chapbook Award, Into Grace contains the individual award winning poems Into Grace (Poet Lore), New Poem, Wrecked, and Ugly poem (2000 Vachel Lindsay Award from Willow Springs), and Dark Field (Sow's Ear 2001 Poetry prize).
Out of print
The Long Grass
Lisa Rhoades's The Long Grass is the poetry of a feminist woman of faith, whose poetic fire was rekindled after the sudden early death of a close friend. These poems are of a piece with her earlier book, Strange Gravity, yet they represent another vision, another music that is at once calm and urgent, and absolutely breathtaking. Hr poetry breathes in the air that is music even as it sings the question "Why must the damaged world / impinge on this November day?" Her poems are the haunting psalms of our difficult days.
Aliki Barnstone, Poet Laureate of Missouri
Strange Gravity
Strange Gravity is a book of transformations. Ordinary people, ordinary actions, are lit with visionary imagination. A man is polishing a Cadillac, "needing something that shined to his touch." When bad weather ends, "every slouches/an inch toward kindness." Small miracles, yet who of us can see this far, tapping into the stream just beneath ongoing life, where you reach in, the exact right place under the surface? Girls in a car put on make-up, "holding everywhere you've been in the mirrored palm of your hand." Lisa Rhoades tells us who we are, so many selves; a deceptive simplicity, snaring with delicate tendrils, clinching with exact metaphors, hitting the mark in poem after poem.
Elaine Terranova, Awards Judge
Into Grace
Winner of the 2002 Riverstone Poetry Chapbook Award, Into Grace contains the individual award winning poems Into Grace (Poet Lore), New Poem, Wrecked, and Ugly poem (2000 Vachel Lindsay Award from Willow Springs), and Dark Field (Sow's Ear 2001 Poetry prize).
Out of print