Words on Water by Normandi Ellis

“The only wrong note is the one unsung. . .” writes Normandi Ellis in Words on Water. Hers is a message of inclusion; at the core of her volume is overflowing generosity. She then welcomes her reader with, “Open your lips, Beloved.” These poems will re-heart you with a rich awareness that the Beloved within is literally permeated with images of Eros and Ecstasy. Rather than consigned to a place of fear, darkness is lifted up as sacred ground, where healing songs can be learned. When your hand sets this book down, something like creative pollen & electric amber will cling to your palm, empowering you and blessing the living earth around you.
–John Fox, The Institute for Poetic Medicine

“Did you see the moon writing a poem full of light for you?” Normandi Ellis asks us in the opening poem of Words on Water, and we know we are in a place where the worldly and the otherworldly merge. Indeed, Ellis’s poems flare and glimmer, transcendent and material as moonlight inscribing itself on the Nile as they take us to the heart of a desire to merge with the Beloved. Though Egyptian gods and goddesses flicker across the sky or arise from stones and sand, these poems of transport never ignore the earthy place from which our holy longing rises, tangled with “needs for tenderness and flesh.” Early on, the poet gives us permission to “sing [ourselves] into being,” mistakes and all — for there is no Being in her poems without imperfections, aging, and regret. In her deft hands here poetry becomes a “music complete with all sorrows and joy/all ecstasy, disappointment and grief.”
–Leatha Kendrick, author of Second Opinion and other poetry books

Normandi Ellis lives in two worlds, 21st century America and ancient Egypt, and where those two worlds meet is a place of magic to which we are transported via her words. She is open to the All, to the universe. “The only wrong note is the one unsung,” she says, and she fearlessly and with humility and grace sings them all. In so doing, she encompasses us in her world of timeless beauty and spirit. Words on Water is a book to savor and proves again that Ellis is an important poet.
–Elizabeth Oakes, author of Leave Here Knowing

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]