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Joan Colby
Selections from the author's previously published books of poetry.
Letterally
An abecedary of poems by the late, great Joan Colby
The Salt Widow
The final volume of poetry by Joan Colby, considering her 60-year marriage to Alan and his death.
XI Poems
This first collection of Joan Colby's poems has been one of the most satisfying projects in the Interim books series that we have ever undertaken.--kc.
Joyriding to Nightfall
In JOYRIDING TO NIGHTFALL, written in her eighth decade of life, Joan Colby explores resistance to the obvious and the heartless while insisting that defining beauty in all its masques is the end game. These poems powerfully address the universal elements or weather and nature as well as the human interventions of conflict and choice.
Broke
The poems in Joan Colby's chapbook BROKE were engendered by an accident in which several of the author's bones were broken. This led her to contemplate aspects of the word "broke." Due to a badly fractured wrist, the poems were laboriously printed with the non-dominant hand, which captures how the fact of brokenness, like the word itself, insinuates both damage and repair. Ironically, X rays of the tension-wire hardware used to secure Colby's shattered kneecap were eerily identical to the symbol for extinction shown on the chapbook's cover.
Properties of Matter
Properties of Matter is that rare book that encompasses both the universal and the particular. Individual poems are metaphysical in tone, often anthropomorphic and elemental in imagery, and become, as the book progresses, a vast, collective exercise in metaphor. A reader need not die, like Audubon and Stubbs's specimens, to understand the true nature of the subject, but, I suggest, one reading will not be sufficient to truly appreciate the breadth and depth of this collection. -Alan Catlin "Round and calm," like the moon that leads us into this gorgeous collection, Joan Colby's detailed eye illuminates everything. The poems in Properties of Matter are lessons in how to observe and live in bo...
Her Heartsongs
Joan Colby knows how to take anything familiar and have us read just our view of it. Her energy never flags as she transforms nerves into a tapestry or delves into the structure of a foot and tells stories that go where he would never have exepcted them to go. There is a probing character to so many of her poems as they give up layer upon layer of meaning or suggestion. Such a pairing of imagination with the craft to frame it is a rare gift. -- David Chorlton
Ribcage
Years drain the energy from some poets, but Joan Colby's work is as fresh and creative as ever, perhaps more so. Ribcage showcases the poet's rich imagination on subjects attempting to reconcile body and mind. The first section of the book ("The Body in Question") extends metaphors from various body parts (heart, blood, nerves, finger and hands, etc.), and the last section ("The Mind at Play") continues with a rich lyric and imagery often sung from a mystic sensibility. Humor and irony are also part of the poet's toolbox, as in "Chewed to Meat Hooks" in which the purposes of the hand are revealed: Which leads us to the signifier/Insolent as a poker. To be used/For motorists who cut me off. Particularly in the last section, the imagery carves itself a place in the memory because it shocks with profound truth, as in my favorite, "The Nature of Freedom," which begins with "An open door is terrifying." Thankfully, the poet has opened doors into views we need to see. -Robert S. King, author of Developing a Photograph of God
