HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE -- Friends of the Coronado Center Library of Hot Springs Village will open the 2018 season of "Wine and Cheese with the Author" at 3 p.m. Thursday with poet Judith Waller Carroll.
Carroll's book, "What You Saw and Still Remember," her first full-length collection of poems, was published in November by Main Street Rag Publishing Co.
"The book has drawn praise from poets and critics alike," a news release said.
"Judith Waller Carroll's gorgeous poetry collection, 'What You Saw and Still Remember,' offers an astounding journey into the intensity of caring for an ailing loved one and the power the natural world has to transform and heal those who pay close attention to it," Iris Jamahl Dunkle, poet laureate of Sonoma County, Calif., said.
Called "a master of the brief lyric poem" by Oregon poet Andrea Hollander, Carroll uses nature as a departing place to discuss difficult subjects like a son's drug addiction and a husband's battle with cancer.
"I draw a lot of inspiration from nature," Carroll said in the release, "and do a lot of writing in my head when I walk."
Sandy Longhorn, creative writing professor at University of Central Arkansas, said, "This book reads like the comfort of a soft rain and then the sun breaking out after. Carroll's poems ... remind their audience, gently, to savor the minutia of each day. Contemplative and intimate, this work, like all good poetry, will call the reader to slow down, to read again."
When asked why she chose poetry as a medium instead of prose, Carroll said, "Prose is more concerned with what is being said, while poetry focuses on how it's being said; it's more about the language."
Carroll is the author of two chapbooks, "The Consolation of Roses," winner of the 2015 Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Prize, and "Walking in Early September." Her work appears in journals and anthologies and have been nominated for Best of the Net. Her poem "Dimensions of the Heart," one of the poems in this collection, has been nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize by Gyroscope Review, where it first appeared.
Carroll was born and raised in Montana, and her poems often reflect her deep connection to the area. In "Leaving Montana," she writes:
"There are so many reasons to go,
but try telling that to the asters, reaching
like arms as we pull out of the driveway,
or the squirrel questioning us with his tail
as he gathers acorns by the Saunders' oak.
Even the black bear has come down from the hills
to leave his opinion at the end of the lane."
Carroll lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she worked in public relations and fundraising. She and her husband, novelist Jerry Jay Carroll, moved to the Village in 2004.
The event is free and open to the public. Email President George Aldrich at [email protected] for more information.
Entertainment on 01/21/2018