Shameless Self-Promotion

I'm excited to announce the upcoming release of my poetry chapbook, Before Noon. Finishing Line Press is the publisher, and they currently have the title available on their site for pre-order here.

Some of you may know Finishing Line Press as the publisher of chapbooks by local poets Phyllis Meshulam and Donna Emerson - I'm in good company! I'm also fortunate to have my daughter Rachael as the cover artist of the book.

The pre-order quantity determines the press run, so if any of my multitudes of readers think they might want to purchase the title for themselves or someone else, now is the time to do so. Advance sales end October 24th, 2014. The book will be released early December 2014, in time for the holidays. Below are endorsements for the book as well as a poem from the collection. 

Here is a voice, familiar and unpretentious, playfully turning the world inside out. In Rebecca Patrascu’s debut collection, beauty can be fierce, even brutal, while sorrow has a tender delight at its core. The poet’s gift is to deliver this with a clarity that is both lyrical and no-nonsense. It’s there in a sonnet, casting off the inconstant moon; in the lovesick passion of wild mustard; in old men with “mottled skin” reeled back in time to become “cowlicked boys”; and in the alchemist dairy cows herding us home. These poems are little benedictions, full of reverence, honesty, and surprise.   —Terry Ehret, author of Lucky Break and Night Sky Journey

Rebecca Patrascu is the kind of poet you look forward to reading: her work is smart; she knows just where the reader is and delivers her surprise in just the right moment.  It’s not always the knockout end-of-the-poem ah-hah moment either—she’s much more clever than to be that predictable in her writing. I have been waiting for this long-overdue collection for years and it was worth the wait.  —J. P. Dancing Bear, Editor, The American Poetry Journal

Rebecca Patrascu has a keen vision that illuminates the world and allows us to see what we know is there, but often overlook. Reading her poems makes me feel more alive. I love her bold pronouncements: It is morning. The mistakes are unmade. Her vivid images of loss: the breeze-stricken apple boughs. Her confident claim: The fields of wild mustard flowers are in love with me. And her big heart: I am in love with old men...Erstwhile Joves, each one, thundering with passion." Rebecca Patrascu is a poet to watch out for!-Ellen Bass, author of The Human Line  and  Mules of Love