Dark Matters - Paperback

by Diane Kistner (Editor), Katharyn Howd Machan (Author)

Fairy tales and myths inform this collection of poems written by a woman who has often danced or fled the shadows cast by old stories. Wolves, princes, looms, combs, swans, straw, blackbirds: these images, polished to the bone by telling and retelling, take on new shape and life when infused with autobiography and lessons learned from others' choices and fates. What path can a young girl take when her red sweater grows ragged? How can a bride escape the knife poised to cut off her trusting feet? Yet, too, these poems are about survival, resilience: Penelope learns to weave for and with the women around her; a resourceful witch outwits a stickler who would silence her; a sister escapes murder and grows up into summers of wild strawberries. Ultimately, risk's rewards triumph, offering a crone's wisdom that even sadness is "tipped with stars and stars."

Author Biography

Katharyn Howd Machan lives in Ithaca, New York with her beloved husband, fellow poet Eric Machan Howd. Professor of Writing at Ithaca College, she holds degrees from the College of Saint Rose, the University of Iowa, and Northwestern University. Her poems appear steadily in magazines and anthologies, and she has 32 previous collections. Former director of the national Feminist Women's Writing Workshops, Inc., she edited ADRIENNE RICH: A TRIBUTE ANTHOLOGY (Split Oak Press, 2012). In 2018 FutureCycle Press will publish her SELECTED POEMS and Cayuga Lake Books SECRET MUSIC.