verlee

Racing Hummingbirds examines critiques and at times delights in one woman's navigation through the many worlds of manic depression and her struggle to maintain humanity in the process. Jeanann Verlee's award-winning debut collection is a series of narratives prayers and conjurings which address gender sex race poverty heartbreak and survival with such stark intimacy you will find yourself living inside. These poems cannot possibly be about you yet they are. They cross boundaries and reclaim hope. They are as the opening poem suggests nothing short of communion. Fierce and formidable Jeanann Verlee is poised to make an indelible mark †much like a razor slashing silk †on what's become a comfortably placid poetic landscape. Her unflinching and uncompromising stanzas will change the way you move through the world. -Patricia Smith “Blood Dazzler”Any storyteller can recount powerful experience [she] makes you feel something powerful is happening in the telling. It is when safety dissolves that we discover possibility...It’s a special person that will make you wish they were your villain. â€Brian S. Ellis “Uncontrolled Experiments in Freedom"...a roller coaster of imagistic magic. Form language allusion and voice interact collide shape-shift and duel...throughout an utterly arresting mosaic. â€Danse Macabre Magazine