Putting My Ash on the Line

In this debut chapbook by Pacific Northwest poet, Kathleen Holliday, the reader is introduced to a voice sharpened by experience and imbued with a passion for words. As the title suggests, these twenty-nine well-crafted poems combine word-play and wit, history, myth ("The Wine-Dark Sea") and literature ("Ms. Havisham," "A Great White") to explore such themes as love, loss, family, place, and heritage. She can find the comic in the tragic ("Going For the Jocular"), the tragic in daily life (...