Cool Shades of Eventide

Description

"Nancy Krieg's poems explore both the natural world and internal landscapes while paying close attention to the music of language. The resulting resonance echoes in the mind and in the space outside where sound takes them to new revelation. Read these poems aloud for their true effect."

-Shawn Pavey, And Even if We Did, So What!?

"Nancy Krieg's poems never fail to open themselves a little more upon each reading. These are poems of love that delve far deeper than the reflective surface of infatuation; they plow to the silt and bedrock of the nature of human connection, revealing the "heart's violent surge." The poems in this book speak to the cosmos within ourselves. Krieg finds the sublime musicality in our shared experience. Musica is certainly one of the many facets which show through in Krieg's verse. One moment you'll see "Monk climbing/straight up to heaven," the next "Miles trumpet breathes/in my ear." In the latter, the reader can feel the buds in their ears, see the monotonous cycles of the laundromat dryer, and experience the jazz genius transporting generations to more tolerable locales. While this book sometimes wonders if "perhaps we are the epitome of madness," above all, Cool Shades of Eventide implores us to always remember "you don't have to be strong, just human."

-James Benger, author of From the Back

"It's been said that music is the healing force of the universe, I would argue that music is the thing that holds all of our existence in place. For Nancy Krieg in her new collection Cool Shades of Eventide, there is music everywhere. These poems ring like the banjo of sunrise, they hold the blues of time and look at its full face, they imbibe in the jazz of this now and they listen to the breath of the moment in all its tender cacophony. There is the alchemy of brush on snare while ride cymbal, clasp closed, sizzles around the sacred sound that only poetry can document. This is a fine book, a book of celebration and in her words Suddenly, we are all over the sky."

-Jason Baldinger, A History of Backroads

Misplaced

"If Cool Shades of Eventide sounds like a blues song, indeed it should because professional musician Nancy Krieg penned this volume of poems containing many sketches from an insider's view of the music scene-from bluegrass ("John Henry," "Woodshed"), blues and jazz ("all good children," "Jazz at the Blue Room," "arc of the healer," "blue scapes ride till one," "keel over blues," and "Blues Round,") that includes a technique to motivate a fellow band member "because daddy needs his medicine" ("Todd Loves Nancy Drew"). One poem reveals insights to Janis Joplin's method of coping in "needle and the arm," and Krieg expands imagery by using visual art to describe music in "Eliane," who "folds clusters/of stares into square holes." Yet this collection doesn't solely explore music. Early in her writing endeavors, Krieg displayed both philosophical and psychological insights. Within the past decade, I have watched her writing evolve by weaving those insights into mysterious imagery, such as in "The Visitor" with a "suitcase full of torment/broken crown of stars/tangled in her hair."

-Lindsey Martin-Bowen, Author of Where Water

Meets the Rock and Crossing Kansas with Jim Morrison