Overview

"House in Love Country is a poetry collection that carries us through childhood, coming of age and adulthood with an intense search for love. A literal and metaphorical journey to the far reaches of the senses and the heart of memory, in this house, juxtaposing the warmth and comfort of family and its inevitable loss, we long to return to our first loves: the natural world, pets, play and life on the farm. Inexorably we give birth to new loves like art, Billie Holiday, travel, and the deeply-rooted human desire to break free. (Love even leads us into the kitchen where Proust casts his spell.) Deaths occur but the primary emphasis is on repeated renewal -- not just the will to start again, but the freedom to do so. Many poems have a strong feeling of the American West, a mix of tribal, cowboy and agrarian cultures. Paris, Nice, Amsterdam, San Juan and Kyoto also become part of the journey. We search for truths on ""rough terrain and slippery rocks"" and discover ""the power of nature lies in its tender words and delicate touches."" Like Chagall, House in Love Country takes us ""off the interstate"" to a full, open life of adventure, discovery, loss, and love in its multitude of expressions."

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House in Love Country creates a lyrical autobiography in poems that catalogue the author's detailed observations of the landscapes, flora, and fauna of her once and future home in Oklahoma and visits to or sojourns in places as diverse as New Mexico, France, the Netherlands, and Korea. The collection also evokes memories of the speaker's past joys and sorrows and finds renewed strength and hope for the future in a spiritual Baedeker written mostly in finely crafted free verse, but one that also takes adventurous forays into concrete poetry, luc bat, and haibun. A number of the poems are elegies about family members and others, and the poems are about, allude to, or provide epigraphs from artists as diverse as Guillaume Apollinaire, Marc Chagall, Billie Holiday, Simone de Beauvoir, and Betty Friedan. This is a rich house indeed, one filled with many treasures and delights.-John Morris, Poet, Professor of English, Cameron University, Author of Noise and Stories This is Love County, Oklahoma, a curve / in the road that leads to open spaces, Patricia Bassel tells us, in the sestina that opens her debut collection. Indeed, her lyrics are grounded in a homegrown love of the American West and family (Bassel's tone is intimate, a conversation shared at the kitchen table); yet it is the eros of exploration that actually drives the poems down that same road, beyond home and into a larger understanding and embrace of the world. Music of all genres plays a considerable role. Also blood oranges, honey, bees, butterflies, herbs, trails, pow-wows, celebrities, airports, thunderstorms, and stone pathways in locales far from the speaker's origins. Deaths occur in the House in Love Country, but the primary emphasis is on repeated renewal. Not just the will to start again, but the freedom to do so. In that way it's a typical American story (someone goes on a journey). What is atypical, in this time of extremism and zenophobia, is Bassel's empathy for those whom she encounters, her capacity to be vulnerable to her own potential transformations, and her speaker's sensually delighted curiosity and joy at almost every encounter.-Sawnie Morris, Author of Her, Infinite, winner of the 2015 New Issues Poetry Prize (judge: Major Jackson), Co-winner of New Mexico Book Award for poems in The Sound a Raven Makes, Poet laureate of Taos, NM, 2018-2019, Former co-editor of The Taos Review

Author Information

After teaching abroad for 23 years, Patricia Bassel has moved back to her hometown of Lawton, Oklahoma where she enjoys hiking the Wichitas and taking her rescue dog Sappho on long walks. Walking is a ritual for her around the world wherever she goes. Earning a bachelor's degree from University of Oklahoma and a Master's degree from University of New Mexico, she taught French and English in Oklahoma, France, South Korea and Germany. Patricia has also done part-time work for Military Child Education Coalition, volunteer work to provide meals to the homeless community, is a member of the Shakespeare Club of Lawton and attends the local open mic sponsored by Cameron University. Several of her poems have appeared in Oklahoma Today magazine.

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