Light, Refracted by Melissa Chappell

Like  “winged psalms of love and loss,” sung by “swallows by the river,” Melissa Chappell writes of sorrow in a rhythm laced with hope. “Picking up their songs from crevices and the cracks,” the poems in Light, Refracted remind us that even in our most uncertain moments, we can always find a “gentle flow of life beneath; warm, wanting, pulsing,” sometimes “in a most unlikely place.”

–Claudine Nash, Author of The Wild Essential and Parts Per Trillion

In the title poem “Light, Refracted”, Chappell writes, “where everywhere, behind every leaf / deep within the sod, / there is a secret, hidden life / to be found.” These lines capture the essence of the collection. With rustic dreaminess and a sacred sense of wisdom and natural order, these poems embody lust, beauty, wish and desire in a thick but feminine contemporary voice. If you appreciate poets such as Selima Hill, Light, Refracted will tantalize your thoughts with a fresh awakening in seeing the refracted light echoing throughout all living creation.

—Dustin D. Pickering, editor,  www.transcendentzeropress.org