Beyond the Moon’s White Claw
by Patty Dickson Pieczka
89 poems, 128 pages
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-1-945063-32-9
Publisher: Red Dragonfly Press
To Order: www.reddragonflypress.org


ABOUT THE BOOK:


In the author’s words: “Beyond the Moon’s White Claw, is a poetic diary drawn from true
events and reflections of marriage, friendship, suicide, PTSD, divorce, war and death. It
recently became clear to me that I needed to come to terms with some of the murkier
parts of my past. This project began as a nearly compulsive need to consider both the
beauty and the undersides of situations that sparked and flared from my memory, as for
years I’d avoided looking directly at them. These poems, presented in chronological
sequence, tell my story. If your life has been touched by some of the issues described in
these poems, I hope this collection will have a cathartic effect.”


ADVANCE PRAISE:


“Beyond the Moon’s White Claw … guides readers through a particular maze of
memories with its lucid and enduring imagery. The voice here is that of a sure and mature
poet, a writer who has come to terms with pain and shock and turned those emotions into
wisdom.”
—Allison Joseph, author of Confessions of a Barefaced Woman, is editor of Crab Orchard
Review.

“As the poet tells us, her book is an autobiographical chronology of marriage, divorce,
PTSD survival, and life in the present tense … I invite everyone to share with Patty
Dickson Pieczka her remarkable journey that is Beyond the Moon’s White Claw.”
—Alan Britt, Last Among the Hours, Towson University.

“What shines in her life? The beauty and power of friendship and the natural world, the
fulfillment of self-knowledge, and indelible love in all its silken destructiveness. Her
language is crystalline; the pauses between sections are filled with longing, a primeval
aching to become and to be in the purity of love and desire. This book chronicles the lives
of those closest to her and depicts immense compassion and altruism …”
—Andrea Moorhead, author of The Carver’s Dream, is editor of Osiris.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Patty Dickson Pieczka’s second book of poetry, Painting the Egret’s Echo, won the
Library of Poetry Book Award for 2012 from the Bitter Oleander Press. She was the
featured poet in their Spring 2014 issue. Other awards include the Maria W. Faust Sonnet
Contest in the Best Sonnet category, the ISPS poetry contest for 2012, (first place in the
free verse category), Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award for 2010, and nomination
for an Illinois Arts Council Award and a Pushcart Prize. Other books are Lacing Through
Time (Bellowing Ark Press, 2011), and a chapbook, Word Paintings, Snark Publishing,
2002.

The Poet graduated from the Creative Writing Program at Southern Illinois University.
Writing contributions have appeared in many journals, including Bluestem, Blue Unicorn,
The Cape Rock, Crab Orchard Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary
Lantern, Red Rock Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Versedaily.org, Willow Review. Her
first novel, Finding the Raven, was released in June 2016 by Ravenswood Publishing.


FROM THE BOOK:


Through a Glass Darkly
by Patty Dickson Pieczka

Our beveled window
splinters the day.
See how the distance prisms
a crimson sunrise,
but the foreground is broken.
In our yard, honeysuckle blooms
from a peony's mouth,
and the maple stump grafts
with dogwood branches.
The wild rose horizon bends back
until all roads return.
There is no way to leave.
The sky reaches for the ground
but feels no substance,
and morning sun sleeves down
past my fingertips,
filling my cup with shadows.

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