$19.99
Adrienne S. Wallner is a poetry force-field. Her poems are moving in the truest sense—physicality embodied in language that consistently speaks to the joys and griefs of being on earth. She is a Whitman poet in the sense that she is writing the one-life poem that radiates from her self in unpredictable directions, a poem that is grandly and sensitively inclusive. I don’t invoke Walt’s yawping name lightly. Adrienne S. Wallner is a genuine daughter, full of the real, intemperate, declarative, evocative, demonstrative stuff. This book is a pleasure from start to finish.
–Baron Wormser, Former Poet Laureate of Maine, Author of Songs from a Voice, Impenitent Notes, The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet’s Memoir of Living Off the Grid
I love the intuitive way the poems in Adrienne S. Wallner’s To the 4 a.m. Light move down each page, weaving in sharply observed moments from daily domestic life and the natural world. The poems in this wise book from a necessary new voice unfold jazz-like, as “sporadic solos/suddenly sprung/out of low melodies,” which assemble to make the kind of joyful noise we all desperately need right now in these challenging times.
–James Crews, Editor of How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, Author of Bluebird, Telling my Father
To the 4 a.m. Light is a collection of poems driven by both grace and daring. Wallner is a careful and subversive observer of daily life, particularly the daily lives of women. There are wild swerves of imagination here, but also the clarity of thought that proves again and again how badly we need language that is both honest and fearless. I read poetry to be shown what is often hidden or simply missed. This book is a lantern.
–Tim Seibles, Former Poet Laureate of Virginia, Author of One Turn Around The Sun, Fast Animal, Hurdy Gurdy
As a reader of poems for more than a half-century, one who no longer ‘gets’ a good portion of contemporary poetry, or who finds it too strident, or too self-indulgent, I felt truly heartened and inspired reading Adrienne Wallner’s To the 4 a.m. Light. Heartened because of Wallner’s unabashedly passionate intensity, her sensitivity toward and spiritual union with the natural world in its seasons, weathers, various terrains, and toward its human and non-human creatures, as well as in her deep engagement with art, music and language itself. In a world where “devices replace dreams” all too often, Wallner’s poems plunge the reader into her urgent journey, one that is socially, morally and spiritually motivated. Her perceptions, particularly those of the natural world, plus the resonant language in which she encodes them, are eerily beautiful and often mysterious. As she says in one poem, “Softly fingering the rosary of nature, it is here that I practice my religion.” Like Eve, who ‘no bone’ ‘bore’, Wallner declares “I walked into the world,/and I did not fall./I made an entrance.” To the 4 a.m. Light is quite an entrance for Wallner is an eighth generation, 21st century, descendent of Walt Whitman, one of those souls to whom he cast his spirit forward. She’s taken upon herself the task of singing a new song of these United States: Her Milwaukee is her Manhattan, her northern Wisconsin woods, the center of the cosmos. Here are poems of the darkest, coldest nights and the brightest, hottest days, of lakes, desert and forest, of love and solitude and of feeling at one with the wilderness and with all existence.
–Gray Jacobik, Author of Eleanor, The Banquet, Brave Disguises
Recent articles/features:
https://www.lakelandtimes.com/articles/northwoods-woman-publishes-book-of-poetry/
You Tube video “Poetry Sneak Peek” created at the request of LOLA, a local arts non-profit, to promote To the 4 a.m. Light.
To the 4 a.m. Light
by Adrienne S. Wallner
$19.99, Full-length, paper
978-1-64662-473-7
2021
Adrienne S. Wallner is a poet, photographer, and devotee of the natural world. Born and raised in Wisconsin, she writes to understand herself as well as the world around her. She loves camping, traveling, crafting, moss, and a nice, hoppy IPA. Adrienne can be found at inkinthebranches.com and on social media @ inkinthebranches.
Gina R Troisi (verified owner) –
Adrienne Wallner’s debut poetry collection is fierce and unflinching. The writing is gorgeous and lyrical. Wallner blesses us with the voice of a woman in the wild, a woman untethered, a woman whose words I want to hear again and again.
These poems vary in tone and form and subject matter, but one thing stays the same: their power and potency is undeniable. This debut collection is a true gift. I will read these poems again and again; the world is a better place now that this work of art has been delivered, and I am a better person now that I have devoured it. You will not want to put this beautiful book down.
Linda K. Sienkiewicz (verified owner) –
A gorgeous collection of poetry that engages all the senses and leaves you breathless. Imaginative and intuitive, the poems have universal appeal. I keep it on my nightstand. Love, love, love.
Christine tierney –
Adrienne Wallner’s debut collection of poetry, To the 4 a.m. Light, is stunning, alive and bathed in lush, lush detail. Rooted in clarity and the natural world, Wallner gently guides us along the path of a life graciously unfolding. At once introspective and daring, we get a glimpse of it all; the poet sharing those visual splendors of nature, “each shuttered cloister of maple buds/shift inside their sanctuary/aching to part the fold/of their soft grey robes,” as well as the poet sharing some of life’s unavoidable pain, “I still can’t seem to shake this/constant barrage of garbage, /the spew and spray/of anger and hate, /the weight of indifference pushing closer and closer/deeper and deeper/ into my body.”
Many of the poems in this collection move from page to page with ease, but Wallner also skillfully surprises the reader with grittier poems punctuated by softer realizations like in the poem, “Cheers,” where the narrator is alone, getting bombed on scotch at a local watering hole wondering how ice became rocks, “was it the crunchback sound/when bar temperature booze hit those cold b*tches? /Or the way the sides smoothed/when it melted.”
To the 4 a.m. Light explores happiness, sorrow, pleasure, nature, acceptance and connection. It is the perfect book to savor in your quiet place, be it the beach, the woods, or your cozy little studio apartment. It is also the book you will read over and over, discovering something new with every foray. Thumbs up. Brava. Buy this debut collection of poetry, and enjoy the talents of Adrienne S. Wallner, poet extraordinaire!
Christopher Heimerman (verified owner) –
Adrienne is a chameleon. She cuts with sharp, often sardonic wit. She grips with vulnerability, authenticity, and willingness to explore areas many leave unexplored. She shifts tonality effortlessly and leaves you guessing every time you turn the page. Yet she sticks the landing over and over. This collection is so good you’ll likely breeze through it. Yet it will remain on your coffee table, gently tugging at the hem of your heart, asking you to revisit and dig deeper. And you will.
Beth Slattery (verified owner) –
One of the things I most love about Adrienne Wallner’s poetry in _To the 4 a.m. Light_ is that you never know where it will take you. There’s a decent chance a poem will be set in her native Wisconsin and a 50-50 chance there will be snow or a lake, but just when I’m beginning to think of her as a nature poet, she will surprise me with a poem like “Never Fell”, a sensual defense of Eve as the speaker who embraces her “sinful” self and doesn’t apologize for her hunger. Or a psychedelic ode to Andy Warhol in “Tomato Soup.” Or an exploration of politics and relationships and self in “After the Inauguration.” Though I am not usually a lover of writing about nature (I’m allergic to the outdoors in general), when I read her words about the natural world as she witnesses it, I want to head to the Northwoods and contemplate my relationship with the seasons, the water, the budding earth.
No matter what she is writing about, Wallner’s poetry is surprising, sensuous, and satisfying.