Blush Less by Julia Paganelli

juliapaganelli.com

Blush Less is Julia Paganelli‘s first poetry chapbook, which focuses on the voices of young women in Appalachia.

“The poems in Julia Paganelli’s Blush Less are fueled by Appalachian shale and coal and the small town voices of waitresses and miners working the late shift. These are poems about the simple truth of needing to make ends meet. And yet as difficult as the circumstances are for the speakers in these poems, Paganelli’s language works hard to transform what fuels them into bursts of lyric intensity capable of transforming the most elemental ingredients of that which powers even our ability to get by—a glass of milk, egg noodles, olive oil on the counter top—into blessing, even into prayer. At times, the poems in this chapbook remind me of Richard Hugo and James Wright, but these poems are all Paganelli’s. There is a satisfying truth in her writing, one that ignites on the very first read and illuminates the dark beauty of the human condition.”
–Joshua Robbins, author of Praise Nothing

Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]