Motion Against Our Moorings

by Joseph Powell, Lana Hechtman Ayers (Other)

Overview

In the title poem of Motion Against Our Moorings, Joseph Powell writes, "Love is the rope stretching into the invisible.//How deeply we believe in the thinnest tethers./What's spirit but motion against our moorings." These poems consider love's intricacies, intimacies, its loss and return. They echo Frost's notion "Earth's the place for love" and capture its ethereal mysteries with compassion, humor, and respect. A line from "Prayer" shows the collection's impact; the poems "relight that candle in the dark window of yourself."

-Kevin Miller, author of Spring Meditation

Joseph Powell begins in childhood; he closes, blessing those gone from us. In between, his precise diction, rhyme, half-rhyme, and an ear for sound guide us through love, pain, and the humdrum daily. Powell explores the heart's readiness despite its being "snagged and torn." After a lover's fight, the offer of basil seed is forgiveness. "Words [. . .] miraculously made visible" lead us through aging, guys at the bar, rodeo, music, hunting-his poems to his mother, losing her memory, touching deeply.

-Alice Derry, author of Asking

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798989948833
Publisher:	Moonpath Press
Publication date:	07/31/2025
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.27(d)

About the Author

Joseph Powell was born and raised in Ellensburg, WA. He taught composition, literature, and creative writing at Central Washington University for thirty years. He was Central Washington University's Phi Beta Kappa Scholar of the Year (2004) and was awarded Distinguished University Professor in Artistic Accomplishment (2009). He retired from teaching in 2014. He has published seven previous collections of poetry. Counting the Change won the Quarterly Review of Literature's Book Award in 1986, and Ted Weiss wrote that Powell "demonstrates a rare command of particulars, of a world held firmly in view in all its sensuous details. Through this immediacy, and through a precision with people as well, he finds ways 'to love a crazy, careening world.'" Winter Insomnia was published by Arrowood Books in 1993. Getting Here, which also won the Quarterly Review of Literature's Book Award, was published in 1997. Hard Earth was published in 2010 by March Street Press; Mark Halperin wrote, "Attentive to craft and form, this is a poetry to turn to when you crave wisdom." Preamble to the Afterlife (2013) was also published by March Street Press, and Katharine Whitcomb wrote that "Powell's voice modulates meaning in the face of life's inexorable tableau of beauty and pain; his poetry sees within the unanswerable questions, and perseveres in its language of praise." The Slow Subtraction: ALS (2019) was published by MoonPath Press; Nancy Eimers wrote that "honesty is a difficult art; you will find its powersgrieve and restore you, over and over." Holding Nothing Back (2019) was published by Main Street Rag; David Guterson wrote that these poems "confront life intimately, with wounds bared, and with humility." He has also published four chapbooks: Aegean Dialogues (1998) from March Street Press, Greatest Hits 1980-2001 (Pudding House Publications, 2001), A Ring in Air (D-Press, 2003), and The Distance Between Us (D-Press, 2015). For his poetry he has won a National Endowment for the Arts Award (2009), an Artist Trust GAP Award (2005), the Tom Pier Award (2006); and twelve poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes from a variety of literary magazines. His book of short stories, Fish Grooming & Other Stories, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in 2008. He has also co-written a book on poetic meter called Accent on Meter published by the NCTE in 2004. An essay won the Victor J. Emmett Jr. Memorial Award from The Midwest Quarterly (2007). He lives with Lori Chandler on a small farm outside Ellensburg.

Lana Hechtman Ayers, a former New Yorker who made her way to the Pacific Northwest via a dozen year sojourn in New England, has shepherded over a hundred forty poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and elsewhere. Lana's latest collection, The Autobiography of Rain, is available from Fernwood Press. She lives in Newport, Oregon on the unceded lands of the Yaq'on people with her husband and several fur babies. She writes in a room over the garage with a view of the Yaquina river. Say hello at LanaAyers.com.