Friday, August 19, 2016

Still Life Stories by Cristina M. R. Norcross ~ JUST RELEASED!

Thrilled to announce that my latest chapbook, STILL LIFE STORIES, was just released by Aldrich Press! Thank you to my editor, Karen Kelsay, and Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books) for helping me bring this book into the world.  

Still Life Stories is now available to order on Amazon.  Signed copied will be available at Books & Company (Oconomowoc, WI) by the end of August, and copies will be available at all of my upcoming events this fall.  Visit the EVENTS page of my author website for more info.



Still Life Stories by Cristina M. R. Norcross
(Aldrich Press, 2016)
Cover art by Jennifer S. J. Peña



Still Life Stories (Aldrich Press, 2016) is a poetic antidote of hope and human connection, at a time when the isolation of modern living leaves us with many questions.  Still Life Stories explores the themes of family wisdom, spirit guiding us, finding the stillness within, seeking one’s artistic path and celebrating joy.  Each slice of life and snapshot of solitude offered in this collection allows the reader to pause and consider the inner life of each narrator.  The poems of Still Life Stories help bring us closer to our true nature – our true spirit.


Sample Poem from Still Life Stories


This Is the High Land
(for Jim H.)

It is a brilliant sight –
this letting go.
The free travel willingly.
The absent lose their footing,
and no ledge is wide enough to grip.

The fall is easy –
waiting for air to fill the whiteness of soul.
There is no direction –
only open space.

The mind hears things
late at night.
What happens when all is darkness?

James knew what the sky could tell you.
If you ask him right now
what happened,
I think he would say
that he was just climbing,
trying to get to the top –
or the bottom –
it matters not which.

We sat in a dark, wood carved pub,
the four of us,
thinking of you.
You sat with us
in the empty chair.
We held you in our breath –
in our silences.



Back Cover Blurbs


I live inside layers of color, Cristina Norcross confides in this moving collection, Still Life Stories. The title provides a double meaning – the speaker remains alive, as she contemplates the lives of others who have passed in these arresting still life images. Like the still life paintings of the 17th century Dutch Masters, Norcross’s poems bring us into a carefully examined world where death is understood as a new aspect of life. And living fully, is what Norcross is all about.
~Susan Rich, author of Cloud Pharmacy and The Alchemist's Kitchen


With lush imagery and a tone of celebration, the poems in this collection explore our relationships: with art, with the natural world, with each other. Cristina Norcross has a gift for finding the beauty in all facets of human experience and rendering them with clarity and precision on the page. She reminds us to pay attention. She invites us to feel. Still Life Stories is eminently accessible and full of heart.

~Kim Suhr, author of Maybe I'll Learn: Snapshots of a Novice Mom and Director of Red Oak Writing


Norcross writes with the tenderness of one who knows that beauty is often born of darkness, and there are joys accessible only through sorrow.  In Still Life Stories she offers readers small, polished jewels reclaimed from loved ones who have walked on: a horse remembering its rider; a climbing friend who fell; dances with a ghostly grandfather. Though gone, her loved ones still live.  Still Life Stories also touches readers with the writer’s gentle counsel to herself: surrender; break open; feel everything; begin again. Still Life Stories is a small book of treasures.

~Leslee Goodman, Publisher/editor of The MOON Magazine


• I will be having a double BOOK LAUNCH PARTY at Books & Company on Saturday, October 15, 2016 (6:30-8:30pm) to celebrate the publication of both Still Life Stories and Amnesia and Awakenings (Local Gems Press, 2016).  There will be an open mic for local poets, after the featured reading, and I will be signing books at the event.  Hope you can join us!

Peace and poetry,
Cristina
Founding Editor, Blue Heron Review



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