Two Local Authors Offer Books on Poetry, Life

Two Local Authors Offer Books on Poetry, Life, and Memoir

Redwulf DancingBare’s 2020 release of “Waiting for the Monsoons for His DesertSoul”, will take you on a 218 page journey of preparing “Soul Cakes”, paddling your psyche up the “Manifest Destiny” river, while literally telling about life in the circus. The book is filled with wisdom and nuance that should ignite your “Cosmic Firecracker” assuming you have any gunpowder in your blood for the metaphysical. But this writing is also down to terra firma with wrenching accounts of sexual abuse (Journal day #4876), subduing trauma with alcohol, bicycling with death, and how hummingbirds will not sing in a cage, but (select) humans can. The book is a packed read, to be slowly churned and unpacked. It will not disappoint and surely shows shots of reality and beauty here in this very specific area of the Southwest. A favorite section of my mine was called “When the First Door Opened”. Here’s a quote from it:

“...let him out in Socorro, New Mexico, a place he later came to understand meant “mercy.” He used his last three dollars to buy french fries and a plastic bottle of water. He walked to the last ramp out of town, ready to head once more to Miami, but as he walked he heard a voice inside his head, loud and demanding. It was the first time he had ever heard this voice. It said, “Turnaround, there’s something here for you!”

As he turned and stood watching, he saw a white van with amplifiers on top approach, and suddenly a voice came booming toward him, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s circus day! Come see Nina, the 3,500 pound elephant. See llamas, jugglers, and clowns! Two shows today at the rodeo grounds.”

There he remembered his amazement when the speaker spoke right to him “Hey you, kid, you want a job with the circus? The sandstorm tore up our tent, and we really need help. You get paid everyday, and you can leave whenever you want!” And he thought back to that very moment as he climbed into a truck to meet indeed. “Roar Runner Red, the Original Cowboy Juggler.” He knew his life had once more opened a door that would never let it be the same again.

In a strange unrelated coincidence, I also came across Elizabeth Herron’s 2013 work, “Poetry for the Ear of God”. This 70-page book of poetry actually features cover art from Redwulf, while Herron gives some prose to the back cover of DancingBare’s book. A wonderful coincidence

This work of poetry will take the reader on a healing journey surrounded by the familiar sights, sounds and smells of the Zuni mountains. She walks us through human errors that are likely necessary for Spirit to enter, as she describes in the process of weaving Navajo Rugs, weavers make an intentional mistake in their weaving form which the Spirit can move freely. Herron doesn’t deny the oft human necessity of having a dark night of the soul. In her words, “...one needs to surrender---stop struggling to get away, avoid, numb, or distract. One needs to feel it fully and inhabit the dark. This movement is often counter to a culture that avoids pain at all cost. To actually move towards and deepen into one’s pain is to encounter very new territory filled with a vast wilderness. One is forced to wait without knowing.”

Yet her stream of poetry brings a trajectory of hope, new life, new birth, replete with angels, and even a love affair with Red Rock. A favorite of mine is her poem “The Great Awakening”. I’ll tease you with the first verse:

“Over the crest of the Zuni Mountains Thunder comes growling Clouds full and expectant, Magnificent billowing breasts, That moisten the air With possibility As plantsstretch Towards the heavens Hoping for that small drop Of Divinemilk”

Indeed, both DancingBare and Herron’s books provide a Madonnaesque nurture to the soul’s journey and would make most readers heart-stomach warmer and fuller. Both these books, I believe, also would make great gifts for your poet, literary friend who has a curiosity about the nuance of where we live. Both books should be available on Amazon, but google is available to all, so don’t quote me. -Chuck Van Drunen