Frame and Mount the Sky by Donelle Dreese, Karen George, Nancy Jentsch, & Taunja Thomson

The best way to read this dynamic new collection is to keep a screen in one hand to view the visual art while you hold the poems in your other hand. These four gifted poets lead us into deep conversation with the artists, the figures, the objects and landscapes they have curated in this chapbook gallery. At one turn, we learn the hard story the young girl carries in the moment Monet catches her dipping her bucket into the icy Seine. In the next room, our hearts speed up as Isaac Cordal foreshadows the impacts of climate change and what will happen when mostly-underwater politicians keep “praying for a proposal to surface.” Gabriele Münter’s boat rocks as we step aboard and notice the same breeze she did, as we let our own eyes be drawn beyond Kandinsky’s eyes “to the mountains at his back.” Each of these poems offers us a gateway into the visual art it describes, a welcome place to pause and breathe “before stepping into paradise proper.”

–Mary Anne Reese, author of Raised by Water and Down Deep (both from Finishing Line Press)

In their response to favorite pieces of art (painting, photograph, illustration or statue), these talented writers have produced their own masterpiece. This is a work you can’t read just once. Each poem becomes a new work of art itself and leads you to many questions ripe for personal research. This chapbook comes together like a well-written section poem. Each poet distinguishes herself beautifully – exquisite poetry.

–Jerry Judge, author of Luna Moth and Writing at the Waffle House