Crestview Tree Woman by Red Washburn

In _Crestview Tree Woman_, Red Washburn creates a feminist poetics, a womyn’s erotic presence that dazzles with its leaps from the concrete to the mystical and surreal, from the physical to the spiritual, the bodily to the political. Her poems dazzle with their incantatory rhythms, associational forays into memory, and juxtaposed images like the following that celebrate the creativity of womyn: “every time a womyn/ sings/ paints/ draws /writes /speaks/ thinks/ comes/ plays /hugs/ kisses/ snuggles/ smiles/. . .a dragonfly grows her wings.” Equally comfortable in the worlds of memory, passion, and the polis, she draws together aspects of womyn’s experience in provocative and compelling ways.

–Jan Zlotnik Schmidt, author of _We Speak in Tongues_, _She had this memory_, _Women / Writing/ Teaching_, _Legacies_, _Wise Women_, and _The Earth Was Still_

Red Washburn confides, “There is music in Michigan;” there is also music in Washburn’s debut chapbook, _Crestview Tree Woman_. The poems of _Crestview Tree Woman_ celebrate life, relationships, women, and the natural world, reveling in the details of sight and sound. Washburn’s voice is a welcome addition to contemporary poetry.

–Julie R. Enszer, author of _Handmade Love_ and editor of _Milk & Honey_