N E W   R E L E A S E :  N O W   A VA I L A B L E 
B E G I N   E M P T Y - H A N D E D
 by  Gail Martin

Winner of the 2013 Perugia Press Prize
for a first or second book of poetry by a woman
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"The poetry is spinning itself into words as we read. Each line is a surprise, as if Gail Martin caught the words in the air as they flew overhead. And yet the work is precise and crafted by the surest and most capable of hands."  

—Laura Kasischke
 
 
THE POEMS in Begin Empty-Handed ride the hinge between the life expected and the reality of life in process. The mid-life speaker pivots between empathy and disengagement, resulting in paradox and believability. While she surrenders to hard truths—loss of parent, enduring marriage, daughters in trouble, for example—she changes the subject, she digresses, then she looks straight at the pain. Throughout, she remains remarkably witty and ironic. No illness, damage, or danger is made light of; painful situations are witnessed or resisted with a raw, honest, and intermittently comic attitude as the poet goes about the brutal work of letting go.
 
 
 
 
 
Gail Martin’s first book is The Hourglass Heart (New Issues Press, 2003). She is a Michigan native with deep roots in both southern and northern Michigan. She works as a psychotherapist in private practice in Kalamazoo, where she lives with her husband, George, and her dog, Piper.

Read a sample poem and order the book now.
  

 
Perugia Press Prize
for a First or Second Book by a Woman

Prize: $1000 and publication
Entry must be submitted between August 1 and November 15, 2013.

 
 
PO Box 60364, Florence, MA  01062
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