THE COLLAGIST
ISBN 8791646034369
April 23, 2024
After Romilly's mother's death of a strange fever years ago, neighbors and family fled her village. Bereft, her father becomes increasingly withdrawn, revealing little of the family history that Romilly longs to understand. When her beloved uncle mysteriously disappears from his boat on a cloudless night at sea, she senses her father's growing terror-- a terror she shares when she spies an enormous Being opening a sail-shaped flap of sky over their wheatfield. Romilly suspects these inexplicable events are connected, but how? With the help of unlikely allies-- the healer Arra, Robbie the boisterous crow, and the kestrel Mira-- Romilly must convince her father to dismantle the wall to his greatest secret, and that of the Being that exists in the world beyond.
“Karen Holmberg deftly uses her poetic ability to craft a riveting coming-of-age journey of “closings and openings.” The Collagist will appeal to readers of all ages, and Romilly’s quest for independence and answers to family secrets will resonate with many young people. An absolutely stunning debut.”
— Tara Lynn Masih, author of My Real Name Is Hanna
“The Collagist is a poignant and lyrical story that artfully weaves the intricate path between trauma and healing, illuminating the power of forgiveness with a touch of magic…With intricate metaphors, whimsical magic, and a cast of empathetic characters, author Karen Holmberg deftly guides us through the universally resonant journey of trauma and secrets and the far-reaching anguish that death and loss can inflict upon a family. Above all, Holmberg illuminates the redemptive alchemy of forgiveness, honesty, and love required to mend our deepest hurts.”
— Robyn Dabney, author of The Ascenditure
The Collagist takes us to a timeless place of sea, sky and all the natural beauty in between. Karen Holmberg’s poetic prose deftly navigates the blurry line between reality and the supernatural. Themes of forgiveness and self-discovery resonate, and Romilly’s journey to claim her true self is all our journeys.”
— Betty Culley, author of Three Things I Know Are True and The Name She Gave Me
ISBN 9781886157835
BkMk Press
Winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, selected by Lorna Dee Cervantes, Axis Mundi explores how human perception can reveal the elegant within the ordinary as well as in such extraordinary challenges as 9/11 and personal/marital disaster. These poems demonstrate how attentiveness to the world outside the self can restore wholeness. They meditate on the ways that, for all living beings, home is continuously imperiled and yet miraculously endures. The poems together develop a larger theme of equilibrium between the earth, its parts, and the wider universe.
ISBN 9781574410860
University of North Texas Press
Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2000, The Perseids is a book which insists that visual contemplation of the world is an act of the soul. These poems render the rich biological detail of landscape with passion and exactitude and describe the mind's dazzling revelations during moments of shifting perspective and scale.
Read “The Perseids” (title poem) in The Paris Review