Migrations: Poetry & Prose for Life’s Transitions features of the work of 75 Lake Superior area writers. The book is edited by Sheila Packa, Duluth Poet Laureate 2010-2012. Included are many accomplished writers (Connie Wanek, Ellie Schoenfeld, Deb Cooper, Gary Boelhower, Linda LeGarde Grover, Jan Chronister, Ryan Vine) and excellent new writers. Each writing captures a moment of change. You will love the strong and beautiful collection that shows we are all birds in a larger pattern of migration traveling back and forth from memory to new beginnings.
available in book stores
Wildwood River Press
ISBN: 978-0-9843777-3-2
204 pages
$15
available in bookstores
Performances and Readings:
Moosebrew Coffee, Tuesday, Oct 18, 6:30 pm
Two Harbors Library, Thursday, Oct 20, 6:30 pm
Fond Du Lac Tribal and Community College, Thursday, Nov 3, 7 pm
(poetry, film, cello)
Lyric Theater in Virginia, Minnesota, Monday, Nov 7, 6:30 pm
Superior Phantom Gallery, Saturday, Nov 12, 3 pm (poetry, film, cello)
Macrostie Art Center, Grand Rapids, Thursday, Nov 17 at 7 pm (poetry, film, cello)
Praise for Migrations
“Sheila Packa’s Migrations is the product of a born writer’s craft nourished and shaped by immigrant work ethic and iron will, Finnish music, burning taconite pellets, long northern Minnesota winters, seeing deep patterns in nature and community and literature. With this potent collection of poems and prose she helps us connect with ourselves and one another as a community in the midst of change, movement and radical growth.”
Ann Wallin Harrington
Family Justice Center Facilitator
Monday Healing Circle
“Migrations is a marvelous collection of wide-ranging, in-depth reflections in poetry and prose on major existential transitions and reinventions. It conjures up colorful images of weather, flight, birds, water, air, associated with transformations triggered by experiences such as being trapped, going away, bewilderment, violence, aging, loss, death, trauma, emigration, and departures.”
Tineke Ritmeester, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She is a Dutch immigrant in transition.
“The Lake Superior area has either bred or attracted an amazing community of poets, and the best are featured in this diverse collection edited by Sheila Packa. While the title Migrations implied any number of processes to me, I was struck by how many delightfully (or darkly) unexpected topics Ms. Packa had included. Love, childbearing, opening, the creative process, Christmas, aging, divorce, the seasons, Paul Wellstone’s death, all and many more are examined in these luminous poems. Open to any page for the gift of a glimpse into the poet’s mind and heart!”
Carol Orban, retired teacher, Ely, Minnesota
“In your hands, you hold a unique collection of high quality poetry and prose by favorite & by newer Lake Superior area writers. Don’t set it down! Turn the book over to examine the cover and lift it to smell this ink-and-paper presentation of singular ideas. And know that Migrations follows the primary rule of poetry, reframing details of your world in ways that jolt your consciousness.
Often the peppery poems end with zingers that vibrate painfully in the reader’s heart, like Jim Perlman’s “No one who lived here can ever come back again.” Or like Pamela Mittlefehldt’s poem, which advises:
It doesn’t have to be the ocean –
take the windruffed puddle
at the foot of the drive
stand on its shore,
and seek the horizon.
And Connie Wanek is here, as reliably wonderful as always, explaining how a cup left on the window sill is “half full of cold tea and half full of moonlight.” Wanek is followed by Deborah Cooper, who notes how the “trees toss the breeze to one another and toss the birds into the sky,” bringing morning. Poignant lines that sting the reader’s sternum!
OK, now carry this book to the counter and then to your favorite reading spot. Migrations will move you.”
Cal Benson, Author of Dakota Boy
