It’s here at last–the project that’s been in the works for over a year! And just in time for Christmas too.
Borrowed Gardens
Authors: Bertoia, Jeannine; Fisher, Tracie; McNulty, Del; Nesdoly, Violet
Publisher: SparrowSong Press (printed by First Choice Books), December, 2014, Paperback, 128 pages
ISBN: 978-1-77084-501-5
About the Book (cover text)
“A collection of poems to touch hearts. They are personal—time and circumstance snapped through the lenses of four women. In their word photos memories abound, family is honoured, love is voiced. Together they speak to a mosaic of people and places, in lands far and near, to times lived and yet to live.”
About the Writers (cover text)
“The pieces represented in this collection are the work of four Vancouver Lower Mainland women. Jeannine Bertoia and Tracie Fisher met in the Fine Arts Department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University. They began to share their poetry in 2005. They were joined in 2006 by freelance writer and poet Del McNulty and finally by author and poet Violet Nesdoly in 2007. The group meets regularly to support and further each other’s creative endeavours.”
A personal note:
I’m so proud of this book—the joint effort of all four of us.
The cover is a painting by Jeannine: “Spring Garden.”
Del conceived the cover design with its stylish bookmark flaps.
The title is taken from one of Tracie’s poems and reflects the theme of gardens, plants, and flowers—one of the subjects that runs through the book. (Other topics that keep recurring are home, family, nature and travel.)
I did the layout and typeset the book’s contents.
Here to whet your appetite are some of my favourite lines from my fellow poets:
From Jeannine’s prose poem “Stories”
“…Huddled on a grey rock, a yellow towel on our laps we told each other stories, yours a stream of laughter, mine told over and over until we became the story. I felt the child under my skin and her face a reflection of my mother and daughter…” – p. 35
From Del’s poem “The Going”
You will go
it will be so tomorrow
where harvest sun
flames the path no longer narrow
we will part then
as light simmers on leaf and limb…”
– p. 66 – this poem won the 2010 Surrey International Writers Conference Poetry Award.
And from Tracie’s title poem “Borrowed gardens”
I wander in borrowed gardens
on pollen-painted legs
trail my hands
through rivers of rosemary
rows of lavender
my fingers retain
lingering aromas…”
– p. 112.
Borrowed Gardens is available from the individual authors.
Price: $15 Cdn. + postage (I will post exact price to mail within Canada & to the U.S. shortly)
Order from me by email (Please put “Borrowed Gardens Order” in the subject line)
Payment by personal cheque or money order.
Violet Nesdoly 