$14.99
Beth Gruver Gulley captures it all: the truth in the words of a poem that once “just rolled like a chocolate drop” from her 6th grade tongue, the amazing gift of a twenty dollar bill in “the pocket of some forgotten jeans,” the way someone’s eyes light up when she enters a room. All those incredibly precious moments we might not note, much less celebrate, had Corona not ruined our trip to the library; had we not lived in a time when we dared not assume we’d make it to summer. Yes, we humans are absurdly inconsistent. We invest in the future with purchases of coffee and snacks and “stamps from the US Postal Service” while insisting that our youth set goals, plan steps for a future we hope to enjoy; do-gooders are do leave a daunting task of cleaning up a nature trail for another day. Sure, we have our differences. For some, strike two is just one strike from the end. For others “life is a game of t-ball with our dad,” who provides “unlimited chances to hit the ball,” while for still others, “getting out of bed and walking on the diamond” means they’re “in the game.” Reading Since Corona Ruined Our Trip to the Library. . . is like coming “into the light” and finding “a familiar face.”
–Eve Ott
Beth Gulley is a writer of profound insight, someone who can see both the catastrophe and the miracle in almost anything. These poems are proof. In them, there is a cat that rides thirty miles on the motor of a car being towed. There is an asteroid that almost hits earth on a beloved’s birthday: “Your birthday will still be sweet / without the explosion.” This is the world of Aimee Bender or Judy Budnitz, but it is also our world, as Kansans—or your story, wherever you live.
–Kevin Rabas, Poet Laureate of Kansas, 2017-2019, More Than Words
Since Corona Ruined Our Trip to the Library
by Beth Gulley
$14.99, paper
978-1-64662-995-4
2022
Beth Gulley is a Kansas City based poet whose work has appeared this year in 365 Poems/365 Days Anthology vol. 3, Kansas English, Kansas Letters to a Young Poet, Flying Ketchup Press, and The Thorny Locust. She teaches English at Johnson County Community College. Mostly, though, she is a messy person who likes to try new things. She recently took up gardening.
James M Benger –
Beth Gulley’s poems always evoke something deep within the reader, and the pieces in her new collection, Since Corona Ruined Our Trip to the Library, is a prime example of this. As the title suggests, some of the poems are in and about the time of the global pandemic, but rather than focusing on the harsh reality which we all faced, Gulley employs her trademark wit, humor, and knack for keen observation into the sublime nature of the everyday. A document of the moment to be sure, this book also seamlessly manages to transcend into something undeniably timeless. Whether singing the praises of tress, presenting a list of personal pleasures, recounting a near miss with an asteroid, or questioning the clairvoyance of targeted ads, Gulley reminds us that we are all “making/little investments/in the future/[we] hope to have.”
– James Benger, author of The Park