Good Ash: Poems
by Kika Dorsey
38 Poems ~ 87 pages
Price: $20.00
Publisher: Pinyon Publishing
ISBN: 979-8-9916083-0-5
To Order: Pinyon Publishing or Amazon.com
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Kika Dorsey’s Good Ash invites readers to join her on a journey. This is no ordinary journey, but one which explores the complexities of parental relationships which were sometimes tragic, the mysteries of death and the afterlife, as well as the spiritual connection with her girlfriends, her male friends, and her closely knit inner circle of family. Her poems present the “good ash” of life that enriches the soil of the spirit’s growth.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
“Kika Dorsey remains one of the best poets writing today. Her confessional style may be influenced by Plath and Sexton, but her voice is uniquely her own. Her language is replete with surprise and revelation, her images brilliant and indelible.”
–James Cherry, author of Between Chance and Mercy
“Threaded through with memories and dreams that articulate the complexities of the human psyche, Kika Dorsey’s Good Ash reminds me that even as our children cut themselves loose and our parents cross over–as our lives become complicated by our intimate, domestic griefs–’the breath of a day lends wind to the blackbird wings’ and ‘the desert is an open skirt weaving blossoms above needles.’ Dorsey communicates with deft, lyrical imagery an absolute truth I needed to hear again: nature is constant and nature is change, and we can derive comfort from its predictable, variable exquisiteness, even as we negotiate inevitable rites of passage we have no power to prevent. Good Ash admits that, yes, to live is to suffer, but it’s worth remembering how ‘the pond’s filthy algae feed[s] the ducks.’ ”
–Sonia Greenfield, author of Helen of Troy is High AF
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kika Dorsey is an author in Boulder, Colorado. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature and her books include the poetry collections Beside Herself, Rust, Coming Up for Air, Occupied: Vienna is a Broken Man, Daughter of Hunger and Good Ash, the latter two winners of the Colorado Authors League Award for best poetry collections. She is also the author of the novel As Joan Approaches Infinity, nominated as a finalist from Book Excellence and a finalist for the CAL Award. She has been nominated numerous times for the Pushcart Prize and for Best of Net. Currently, she is a lecturer at the University of Colorado in literature and creative writing. In her free time, she swims miles in pools and runs and hikes in the open space of Colorado’s mountains and plains.
FROM THE BOOK:
To My Animus
by Kika Dorsey
You can be infinity
and I an American wife.
We can wrestle in my dreams
where I bandage your wounds
and begrudge the days
of binding what is broken.
You ask me to save
every coin you minted.
You are the color of a sandstorm
in the Arizona desert,
welded and hot,
unsheathed in the dark.
We are the color
of the middle of my heart.
You mark the way to it.
I pay for entrance.
My life is a dwarf star
and you the warm map
of my constellation.
I set infants on my lap
and you legislate.
I am snow
and you plow.
It snows every spring
and the angels give God
the silent treatment.
I listen to its emptiness.
I sing lullabies.
You’re doubling in Cartesian formulas.
Two rings: engagement and marriage.
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