"The chapbook is about the experience of being in a mental hospital although it could have been about being in any kind of prison. The specifics are here, and it is well written." —Judy Hogan, Motheroot Journal

Real Stories is a writing and reading text that works. The method Toni Ortner discusses is classroom-tested and designed to meet the needs of multi-cultural high school students. It contains three sections: "The Process of Writing" covers the basic building blocks of writing. "Time Savers for Grammar and Punctuation" includes types of sentences, how to find and eliminate runs-ons, comma splices and fragments, comma use, nouns, capitalization, direct quotes, verb tenses, and irregu...

"The title poem, "Entering Another Country," is dedicated to a male friend who has died. There are exuberant, rich landscapes of imagined travel, journeys into the visual worlds of Grandma Moses and Rousseau, and the painful realization that what the poet means by travel is change and growth, the raw experience of self-birthing, a process into a place as unknown as the death place of her friend. Here Ortner connects with her female heritage. It is a courageous poem of breaking out, and the...

Dream in Pienza was originally published by the Timberline Press in a hand-set and hand-printed limited edition. The title poem, written in Rome, sings of the passion of unrequited love in another century. From birth through resurrection, we sweep our separate shores for sight of stars. Although the angels may have left us to our devices, we become the measure of what we believe. This is God's gift to each of us.

The stories of six famous women from history, each on a spiritual path. Joan of Arc, Saint Teresa of Avila, Marie Curie, Rachel Carson, Mother Teresa, and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross encourage and empower the women of today to trust their instincts and intuition, the vehicle through which a higher power speaks. The power of these women is the power of every woman if she has the courage to follow

Currents We Never Dream Of by Toni Ortner was written when the poet was in her late thirties in a state of transition. The closest one might get to defining the genre would be prose poetry. This is a spiritual journey yet so much more. It explores the currents that run beneath conscious awareness that can only be accessed through dreams, hypnosis or meditation. The words flow smoothly then twist and turn unexpectedly. The reader who is drawn in reads more closely. Insights startle. This bo...

An elegant pink water lily floats on the cover of The Water Poems by Toni Ortner. This beautifully printed book contains 24 clear poems that have appeared in fine literary magazines. Toni’s work alters to record and encompass what is, so this book among l6 others is unique. Like thoughts, water is never still but breathes deeply altered by wind and air. The surface of water reflects what is ….as does the mind of the poet. Objects sink like fading history. Translucent feathers whirl. A leaf...

A poetry collection about women and their experiences in a time when women were emerging on their own.

In this strong, appealing collection, Nancy Willard shares her passion for observing the mysteries of the natural world, particularly the flora and fauna of Cape Cod and the Hudson Valley, where many of these poems are set. We see, through her eyes, the coming of darkness to an empty orchard, the retreat of deer at dusk, and the breakup of a river with the onset of spring. Willard is also deeply engaged with the living creatures that populate her world. Her poems record her encounter with ...

JOYCE'S MOTTO has had much fame but few apostles. Among them, there has been Jack Gilbert and his orthodoxy, a strictness that has required of this poet, now in the seventh decade of his severe life, the penalty of his having had almost no fame at all. In an era that puts before the artist so many sleek and official temptations, keeping unflinchingly to a code of "silence, exile, and cunning" could not have been managed without a show of strictness well beyond the reach of the theater of t...

Thomas Kemp is a sixty-seven year old divorced man and the father of two grown sons, a daughter, and two lovely daughter-in-law's. He started writing poetry for his own enjoyment when he was nineteen years old and a Marine stationed in the Far East. When asked what compelled a young service man to write poetry he would say There was something inside of me that made me write every chance I got. I wrote on anything I could find in those days; napkins, coastersyou know, those ones made of pap...

Science, birds, Billy the Kid, and lots of feathers surround The Feather Room, Anis Mojgani's follow up to his Pushcart-nominated work, Over the Anvil We Stretch. In The Feather Room, Mojgani further explores storytelling in poetic form while traveling farther down the path of magic realism, endowing his tales with a greater sense of fantasy and brightness. The work recounts loss and heartbreak while discovering lightness and beauty on the other side. Throughout the book, Mojgani opens tre...