“Of Rare Earths “

Poetry by Chris Mason

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UnCollected Press followers, fellow artists, poets and readers. This really IS a RARE BOOK:

At UnCollected Press we have tried and continue to try to prioritize artistic projects that contribute to a movement towards living in a way that respects and loves our beautiful planet and all of its remarkable diversity of life.  “Of Rare Earths” is not the first book of environmentally sensitive and family focused artistic writing that we have published, but I am clear that it is one of the most thoughtful and accomplished and therefore probably most effective examples.  This is a moving and beautiful book = an intriguing and insightful, rare, compassionate and fundamentally satisfying read. “Of Rare Earths” is artistry at its most meaningful and impactful. Please read Chris’ book.

Of Rare Earths is a book of poetry which focuses on environmental and family themes.   It has 3 sections: “Clomp Clomp”, which explores these themes in narrative syllabic poems of everyday life;  “Rare Earth Regrets”, prose poems which explores these themes by combining descriptions of uses of rare earth metals with the poets’ regrets: and “Twig or Twine”,  an abecedary of visual poems portraying wonders of the natural and human world.

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The opening poem of this collection says “[t]his poem  . . . can’t bite” which is demonstrably not so—these poems do bite in enumerating the shortcomings of the world that gives rise to them– these are poems frequently in “survival mode” (to borrow a title from one of the poems) but simultaneously these supple and self-aware poems reach towards a hope that is nearly a faith that one day better options might present themselves.   Caroline Hayduk’s is a fresh and distinctive voice.

Christine Gelineau, author of Crave, Appetite for the Divine

Night Bones, “a sheath we wear when we’re too young to know  what it is to settle”, refuses to do exactly that: settle. Hayduk’s playful form and unique voice offer a tangible unrest. Bouncing between persona and narrative “I”, there is a speaker that wants, aches, burns, and disrupts the very core of the body and it’s journey in and out of the darkness of “night”, how shame can harden us but also release–and where we can land in all the chaos and joy on our way there. 

Henry G. Stanton, publisher/editor UnCollected Press

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Exquisitely linguistic, unwordly both flows like a Gregorian chant and snaps like a snare, teasing the mouthfeel with a variety as vast as the emotional significance of rediscovering voice and the impact of our sound on the world. 

Jaime Dill editor-in-chief of Full Mood Magazine, and book editor at Polish and Pitch, LLC.

In unwordly, Robert Guzikowski manages to do the impossible: to convert a language disorder into a ghostly music of the soul.  This remarkable book conjures up reminders of such beat poets as Paul Blackburn, Charles Olson and Robert Duncan, with an echo of Gertrude Stein as well, while at the same time remaining utterly original.  There are wonderful interludes of word play.  unwordly is a verbal kaleidoscope, a word press of (as one poem says) “subatomic hungers colliding.”  Its integrity is evident in every line, every poem.  Two poems mention Thelonious Monk.  Guzikowski’s book couldn’t have a better guardian spirit.  This is Monk himself in poetry.

 John Vernon, author of Peter Doyle, The Last Canyon and Lucky Billy

The poems in unwordly are magical in the way magic makes sense.  All the exceptionally artful parts are designed (divined) to come together in a form of integration that is rooted in an amalgam of beauty.  Sounds, sights, imagery, the music of language – the articulation of parts in unwordly is breathtaking and deeply satisfying.   

Henry Stanton, Publisher/Editor UnCollected Press,

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EMAIL: editor@therawartreview.com if you have questions about or problems with ordering and/or downloading your books.

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GALLEYS HAVE BEEN EMAILED TO ALL CONTRIBUTORS TO RAR’S SUMMER/FALL 2023 JOURNAL ISSUE.

IF YOU ARE ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE SUMMER/FALL 2023 ISSUE AND DID NOT RECEIVE THE GALLEYS, PLEASE EMAIL US ASAP AT:

EDITOR@THERAWARTREVIEW.COM

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GALLEYS HAVE BEEN EMAILED TO ALL CONTRIBUTORS TO RAR’S SUMMER/FALL 2023 JOURNAL ISSUE.

IF YOUR WRITING OR ARTWORK HAS BEEN ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE SUMMER/FALL 2023 ISSUE, AND YOU DID NOT RECEIVE A GALLEY, PLEASE EMAIL US ASAP AT:

EDITOR@THERAWARTREVIEW.COM

THE PRINTER IS CURRENTLY OFFERING DISCOUNT PRICING FOR AUTHORS BUYING 5 OR MORE COPIES OF THEIR BOOKS.

Please email editors at the following email address for inquiries and/or to place orders. Uncollected Press will include 1 extra book for every order of 5 or more books placed. This offer is cumulative so 5 books includes one free book, 10 books includes 2 free books, etc. The same offer is available for purchase of any combination of books – not just the author’s own books.

editor@therawartreview.com

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Gary Beaumier’s poems present crystal clear but novel new images – images that are so refined and honed they feel like long-absent and newly discovered friends – instantly recognizable and welcomed with amazement and love. The poems are a beautiful, soft flow of line and language emerging like a rill discovered in the obscurity of some literary, linguistic woodland. This is deeply compassionate and emotional poetry that never-the-less eschews sentimentality.

• Henry Stanton , Publisher, Uncollected Press

The poet manages to bare his soul in the perfect distillation of words – this is the work of Gary Beaumier. Raw, heartfelt, and aching with all the messiness and longing of life.

• Mary Boyle,, Managing Editor of Ozaukee Living Local

In these poems present, past, and even future coexist, death and life two sides of a coin. Beaumier deftly conjures–and honors–memory as a landscape where endless discovery beckons, where sanctuary may be found.

• Virginia Small, Poet & Author of Great Gardens of the Berkshires

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These poems hit where it hurts and score when it counts. The guy writes like an angel with its hair on fire. End of story.

• John Yamrus, Author of nearly 40 books, the latest being Twenty Four Poems.

Driving the Lost Highway goes from a rainy day cup of coffee and a purring cat to a short suicide note, lonely men with stuffed unicorns for pets, then Christmas ghost memories with gone on family members, and includes more love than Hallmark could ever market. The poems read like daily prayers and ransom notes for missing hearts. They cheer for the most hopeless and forgotten underdogs and know that it’s never about keeping score. They eschew anything mainstream, cookie cutter, or poems about wrens and snowy egrets, unless they’re dying a day at a time, just like we are. Jeff Weddle’s poems pack BAM!-POW!-metaphors, and this collection stands amongst the best poetry published this year. 

Dan Denton, union autoworker, poet and novelist

These are cerebral poems that roll off the tongue and leave you smiling. Celebratory and castigatory, honest work. A delight to read.

• Bree of Green Panda Press

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