Waiting for the Wood Thrush by Ashley Memory

“Ashley Memory’s poems are love poems: love for the lives of specific persons, each of which is a miniature short story often with a surprising conclusion: “Lucie Mae fretted until her pin curls unraveled;” love for trees, one of which becomes a protagonist, and a tragic figure; love for flowers and animals: two donkeys separated then reunited but forever changed by the ripping; love for large and small events of time: songs by the Beatles, the fall of the Berlin Wall, year books and their messages which end up in Junque Shop piles; love of humor, as in the naughty goddess of lost tools and the whimsy in word choices; love of language: “the spider trapezes between the hibiscus and the parsley,” bluebirds plump as pin cushions,” “A beetle/ bungeed into her Chinoiserie cup;” love of form: rhyme, ballad, pantoum, formal and free verse; love for love itself with its longing, its pain, its glory. Memory’s poems are fully human, and therefore fully real; they are moral poems, in that they lift the reader to a higher level of appreciation for the human world and the world of nature.”

–Joyce S. Brown, author of the poetry collection Vital Signs, Orchard Street Press and former instructor, Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars

“Ashley Memory’s poems take matters of the soul and make them breathable. She does what a poet must—she takes what hurts in life and makes us laugh, sigh, think, then turn the page. The hurting, of course, doesn’t go away, but “Waiting for the Wood Thrush” reminds us of the whole brilliant spectrum of emotion that poetry brings us.”

–Matt Swain, Co-founder and Poetry Editor of Turnpike Magazine

“Ashley Memory’s first collection of poetry is witty, wise, overflowing with life and color, grace, and the goodness in our lives.   This poetry is really Poetry with a capital P. You go from the natural world, to how to see a ghost to an antiques fair to sin town. What joy! What word pleasure! Read and remember, then read again.”

–Ruth Moose, Pushcart Prize-winning author of two novels, four collections of short stories and six collections of poetry, including Tea and The Librarian.