The book is finished. The launch is beginning. I've got the beginnings of the road tour, started this past week. Things are just way busy, it is more like before I began blogging. I still work for a local Princeton family, cooking and helping with their three daughters. I still cook, write, am running the publishing company, and am having a darn good time at it all.
My book was edited by three different people over the course of last year til last month. I feel really good about what it holds, my new voice, and have decided to call myself an old western revivalist poet. Just seems to fit.
I mostly post on Facebook now, for private reasons, and it is better to talk one-on-one over there. I hope all of you are doing well. I hope you are living out your days in peace. I want the best for even the snarkiest of you. Seriously, it's how I roll.
Here are some reviews for my book-
I've never
been to Texas but after reading Elizabeth Akin Stellings' fine book it seems
like I have. It's better than a Lonely Planet Guide in that the poet marks
every locale with personal references. You learn more about Texas than if you
went there. It preserves the past without sinking into nostalgia. It's a gritty
description of a poet's love of a place that is gone, except in her memory and
images. She shows how the land intersects with her life. She has a visual
sense, shifting from the personal to the landscape, like a city scene and a
still life merged together. I've never read anything like it. She proves
through her writing that borders are just a state of mind.
-
Hal
Sirowitz
Former
Poet Laureate Queens, NY
1 1994
Recipient of NEA Fellowship, Poetry
Elizabeth
Akin Stelling’s My South by Southwest presents a childhood without fences −
just yards and yards of Texas fields and skies.
Her language is dense and fresh and very moving − like the surprise of
falling asleep on freshly washed sheets.
-
Shelby
Stephenson, Poet
Former
Poetry Editor, Pembroke Magazine
To recall
something is to remember something from the past, to find a special moment in
time and grant new life to it. Elizabeth Akin Stelling’s My South by Southwest
Recollection grants new life to all regions of Texas, with a final movement
east to New Jersey. The collection begins with childhood memories of cowboy
culture, of boots and stirrups, of cornbread and beans, and then it culminates
in one woman’s recollection of her beloved past and all of its precious images.
Stelling
chooses to define her own poetics in My South by Southwest Recollection. Rather
than utilizing traditional poetic forms or mechanics, she writes in the style
of the Beat Generation by breaking lines for sound and rhythmic emphasis. By
doing this, Stelling mimics the musical, local cultures of Texas.
By using
Texan images, dialects, and music, Stelling writes a Western experience with an
inspired voice.
-
Andrew
Jarvis, Poet & Editor
My South by Southwest: A Cast Iron Tempo
Recollection is a provocative
collection that chronicles a special quietude inside thunderstorms that
unsettle both earth and heart. Elizabeth Akin Stelling is a poet prospecting as storyteller. She masterfully unearths emotional trapdoors,
unexpected complexities, humor, and the resiliency of mature love. These poems
celebrate triumph, fearless honesty, and the pursuit of grace. Elizabeth Akin
Stelling drowns the page in red clay
misery. Her two step small talk
is the language of power needed for the
price you pay to roam free in harsh country.
- Jaki Shelton Green, Author, Breath of the Song
Piedmont, NC Poet Laureate
- Jaki Shelton Green, Author, Breath of the Song
Piedmont, NC Poet Laureate
