Remind Me Next Spring . . .

By Phyllis Purscell

"If Jesus had grown up in my family . . ." "I dreamt I took my cat to the opera . . ." "To the very minor god of clean sheets . . . " "I want to stand outside the food court /of the Mall of America, and take / the following survey: Have you now-or for that matter ever-had all your ducks in a row?" How can you put aside a book whose poems have such inviting beginnings? There is no voice in American poetry quite like Phyllis Purscell's. Remind Me, Next Spring is a wise, funny, compelling book that understands loss and longing and gives us the strength to live with both. How many books of poetry do that: give us strength? We start so many of the poems rooted in the poignant and challenging details of a very real place, a very specific time, but we end these poems and this book seeing more than we intended and we dared hope for. There is much to wonder at, much to be grateful for. The poet knows this and reminds us of this. Phyllis Purscell never turns away from the terrors and disappointments of life, nor does she shirk its surprises and joys. "And as you return that night from a late dinner / your light-saturated suburban sky manages/to toss you down the Pleaides." It is fitting that this book begins with light and ends with light. -Christopher Bursk author of The Improbable Swervings of Atoms "I have decided to love / everything about January," writes Phyllis Purscell. "The tiny new moments of day / borrowed from reluctant night." Purscell's poems thrive on the everyday and earthly, on family, on a Midwestern girlhood shaped by the "benign despotism of good parents." No sentimentality here, but life observed with quiet awe and captured in language perfect and precise. I relished poem after poem in this luminous collection, a gift to us all. -Lynn Levin author of Miss Plastique The poems in this new collection by Phyllis Purscell have such a resounding wisdom to them, such an honest frankness, you'd be foolish to read them only once. Purscell's keen eye for nuance and detail are woven so skillfully into her gentle humor and nonchalant candor, you will find yourself deliriously lost in the pages. "Remind Me Next Spring . . ." speaks in clean, careful lines about the most fragile of moments, and then, just as quickly, the next poem wisps you into a cordial banter one can only expect from a lifelong friend. Her unique ability to create genuine intimacies with her readers emerges quickly in this collection, a splendid combination of intelligent composure and rich, indulgent language. This will be a collection you remember, poems that will linger long after you've closed the cover and walked away-"something akin to-but not exactly-faith." -Lorraine Henrie Lins author of All the Stars Blown To One Side of the Sky

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0692570950
• ISBN13: 9780692570951
• Release Date: November 2015
• Publisher: Aldrich Press
• Length: 100 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.2" x 6.0"