April 10, 2020 – My first poetry collection, Every Day Is A Love Letter, is published and available for purchase in paperback on Amazon. The Kindle edition can be pre-ordered and goes live April 18.
This 100-page chapbook contains 35 poems with themes ranging from love and grief, to the emotional lives of children, climate change, and war. I hope you enjoy it – please leave a review and let me know what you think.
The cover image is a photograph I took at the top of a hiking trail in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The park, located near Cleveland, was located almost exactly halfway between where I was living in Michigan and where my future husband lived in West Virginia. He was a longtime friend and our relationship took a romantic turn. We decided to meet in Ohio and see where we found ourselves.
On the day I took that photo, we hiked around for hours. We walked along old Erie canal ways, strolled along the lake in Cleveland, even climbed to the top of an old lighthouse. It was as if we were walking to keep talking and push back that awkwardness of first romantic encounters. We were adults, not teenagers, but it felt very much like we were protecting ourselves from the inevitable with our activities.
We reached the end of the trail at Ritchie Ledges in the park just at sunset. It had been a quiet hike through the woods, but as we mounted the top of this ridge, the overlook was crowded with people. It was a wedding party.
As it happened, our arrival was good fortune for the group, who had no photographer on hand. I took dozens of pictures for them posing together while the sun set over the valley.
Then, almost like a flock of birds alighting at once, they took their celebratory leave of us.
My friend and I were alone to watch the last peak of sun together. I only took one picture for us – the one on the cover of my book.
