Breaking news this morning from Phoenicia Publishing:
Phoenicia Publishing is delighted to announce that a new book of poems by Luisa A. Igloria, The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-life Crisis, will be published in March 2018. This is a collection of 53 “Buddha poems” that Luisa wrote in early 2016, many of which have appeared online at Via Negativa, where she has posted a new poem every day since November 2010.
The author says these poems began from the premise that “if the Buddha in me can greet the Buddha in you,” then the aspiration to transcendence is a daily work in progress. She writes about the constant seesaw between our appetite for worldly things and the hunger for deeper permanence; about our human imperfections and foibles; and our longing to be touched by grace, if not love and absolution, in this lifetime.
The post goes on to suggest that interested readers subscribe to their email newsletter so they won’t miss the announcement of the pre-order sale, which I guess we can expect sometime in February.
This will be Luisa’s second book with Phoenicia, following Night Willow in 2014, and her first full-length collection since Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (selected by Mark Doty for the 2014 May Swenson Prize, Utah State University Press). Both those books, along with two subsequent chapbooks, also consisted mainly of poems first drafted for Luisa’s ongoing poem-a-day practice at Via Negativa. (Visit her website for links to all of her books still in print.)