Overview

Francine Witte newest poetry collection Some Distant Pin of Light is an exploration of life's fleeting moments, capturing the essence of human emotion with lyrical precision. Her poems delve into themes of love, loss, and the passage of time, blending vivid imagery with evocative language. Each piece is a snapshot of everyday experiences, transformed into profound reflections on the human condition. As with her previous collections, Café Crazy and The Theory of Flesh, these pages are filled with lost lovers, nostalgic family portraits, and her deep concern for the environment. Witte's keen observational skills and masterful use of brevity create a tapestry of interconnected vignettes that resonate deeply with readers.

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9781950063901

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Reviews

Gregor Samsa woke up as a huge insect in a bourgeois bed, struggling to make sense of what has happened to hiem and what he can do about it. Among her many story-telling bursts of brilliance, Francine Witte contemporizes the Kafkaesque shock of being slapped in the existential face, offering up modern perplexities that are familiar as they are strange. A woman finds herself among many middle-aged women in a grocery shop, 'wheeling their girliness around in a shopping carts... (to the) burst of corn pops and leprechauns winking.' A man finds himself trapped in an oceanic human wave, aching to break past his 'beach-locked future' and make connection to the 'distant pin of light' from which he came. There's humor and metaphorical pathos aplenty in this fine collection -- from men who can play themselves backwards, to prove that Paul is dead, to a self-declared 'map of me' that would drive you into a lake if you tried to navigate by it. This is smart stuff, New York City smart, memorably smart. Tales told to the tune of the underground thrum which goes beyond the play of good story-telling to a place of reawakening. These are poems to match the beat of a reader's heart -- the heart which is .the acorn inside the tree you have turned into.' -George Wallace, Walt Whitman Birthplace The poems in Some Distant Pin of Light consider how to exist, even thrive, in a world where ""the news gets worse/each day."" Witte's speakers contemplate the past even as they look forward, look up and consider the sun, the titular ""distant pin of light,"" imagine finally that ""billions of miles/away, maybe someone is wishing on it, /wishing for a last desperate chance at love."" With her trademark, vivid imagery, Witte captures both the intimate details of everyday life and the cosmic scale of existence, grounding ontological questions in concrete experiences. This is one stellar collection by a writer at the height of her powers. -Sarah Freligh, author of Sad Math The book starts out with a Map of Me, ""Let's start by saying this isn't// A map you'd fold up in a glove box//or pull up on a GPS"" guiding the reader into a room of observant wit, which takes center stage...These poems bring the reader wandering through a hushed room of the past: each poem is a relic of art that stands still in time. To observe them in their resting places, a past we cannot change, ends with hope: the last piece, turns our attention to the future in Our Star, where a billion mile lover, which doubles for a wave, ""aching to break past his own beach-locked//future, finally able to get whatever he could//wish for on some distant pin of light."" This collection of poetry is a true joy to explore. -Jennifer Juneau, author of More Than Moon

Author Information

Francine Witte is an award-winning poet, flash fiction writer, and playwright. She is the author of 12 books of poetry and flashfiction and her work has appeared in numerous journals andanthologies. She is a native New Yorker and attends and producespoetry events in the vibrant NYC scene. She is the co-host andco-curator of the online reading, The Prose Garden. She is theflash fiction editor for FLASH BOULEVARD and South FloridaPoetry Journal. A former high school English teacher, she nowleads writing prompt sessions on zoom. Witte holds an MFA inCreative Writing/Poetry from Vermont College and an MA fromSUNY Binghamton. Visit her website at francinewitte.com.

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