He touches on phases of his life in Africa, Alaska, Cayman Brac, and his wide-ranging career in journalism, theater, and, most recently, founder of the Mangrove Education Project.

Martin’s poetry touches on numerous themes, private and public, personal and political, and reflects his sure touch as a master of the language.

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Letting Go, Poems 1983-2003: love, in all its myriad manifestations, permeates these poems.

Burton’s second collection, Way Past Time for Reflecting, reminds us of our connections to each other and the places we inhabit.

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From Roots … to Wings is filled with evocations of her young life, buried memories, and lost, now resurrected, moments. This truly beautiful collection reveals the heart beneath the pen.

Her uninhibited take on the world, coupled with razor-sharp memories of teachers, guides, and experiences that led her forward, are poignant and sometimes shocking, as well as, of course, funny and exhilarating.

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His first book, an anthology of poems and stories titled Look Homeward Asheville (Grateful Steps, 2009), was nominated for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. Buried Pennies is his second book, and includes both numerous drawings made both close to home and during his travels overseas.

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“The haiku-like spareness of Nan Socolow’s style evokes vivid imagery, fulfilling to perfection Wordsworth’s poetic ideal of ’emotion recollected in tranquility.’” Thus does Sarah-Ann Smith, author of Trang Sen: A Novel of Vietnam, describe Nan Socolow’s writing.

Among those who have read and praised Invasive Procedures is Kathrin Perutz, author of Beyond the Looking Glass: America’s Beauty Culture, and many other books. “Nan Socolow gives us poems that are short and pert, sweet and sour as if laced with passion fruit. She pounces upon certain moments, capturing them in her net when no one else is looking as Nabokov captured his butterflies.”

Joan Konner, Dean Emerita of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, writes, “Nan Socolow reaches out to touch places we don’t see and yet recognize, and in her simple words, teaches us to pay attention.”

And in the words of Jackson R. Breyer, Professor Emeritus of English at U. of Maryland, Socolow “deals often movingly, but just as frequently humorously, with the many fluctuations, the joys and sorrows, of romance, courtship, marriage, and separation,” sharing her “wry, sophisticated, and acute understanding of the … world.”

Born in New York City, where she grew up in an apartment overlooking the storied square of Gramercy Park, Nan Socolow first studied poetry at Connecticut College with William Meredith, later the U.S. Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. At Princeton University, where she was the first Administrator of Rockefeller College, she studied advanced poetry with Theodore (“Ted”) Weiss, founder and publisher of Quarterly Review of Literature. In France, at the Sorbonne and Musée d’art Moderne, she studied contemporary French Literature and Art.

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The title is deceptive: a brilliant poet never stops reflecting, even on the most disturbing aspects of life. Age, diminishing mobility, the loss of loved ones, upheaval and sorrow are not just burdens to be borne, but subjects for thoughtful, insightful verse.

Among the most profound and beautiful sections in the book are those depicting the heartfelt struggles of a woman watching helplessly as her husband falls deeper and deeper into dementia. As she writes in her dedication, “these poems are dedicated to dear friends—you know who you are—and family, without whom, I could not have traveled this long road to here….”

More than anyone else, Donna Lisle Burton taught A. D. Reed (Editor-in-Chief of Pisgah Press) the value and beauty of poetry. Anyone who reads her books will likewise learn the same appreciation.

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Love, in all its myriad manifestations, permeates these poems. Whether addressing the long-lost young love of her parents, love for her students, love lost or unspeakable acts, Burton embraces all with compassion, finding in each that “single breath of beauty.” Do not be misled by the title: once you start reading, there will be no Letting Go.

Letting Go previously appeared in a limited private edition, and Pisgah Press was pleased to reissue such a remarkable collection as its first poetry collection. In fact, we purchased a copy of the original edition as a gift for a friend, but on reading it, could not let it go, and had to buy a second copy to give away.

While collections of poetry rarely make the bestsellers’ lists, Letting Go is continually available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and the author gains a new fan with every purchaser.

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“The hardest thing for me was that my wife and I were partners, deeply, spiritually, intellectually,” he says. “When it happened it was like someone had chopped me in half. On the Brac I have fabulous friends and I love the community, but I had to find a way to make a decision what to do.”

Over the course of the next year he traveled extensively, exploring his grief as well as his future, as he tried to find a balance to his life and work—between writing and environmentalism, his university job and his peace on the island. And he returned, after many years, to writing poetry. What grew out of that period of searching is a collection of 49 poems that reflect Martin’s explorations, both internal and external, summed up and reflected in the title.

Life is interesting, in part, because many people are unaware of its inherent shifts and changes, structurally and creatively, he writes. “We would like to think that our lives are some sort of continuity, are contiguous, but I think in one sense they are made up of lots of different little fragments which come together sometimes, and sometimes they fall apart.

“The phases that I have been through, which are recorded here, are very much a part of who I am now. They are a mixture of my life before it happened and they are still there. Bits and pieces come together but that’s what lives are—made up of lots of different little fragments. We try to separate them, separate work and pleasure, home and kids and all that, but in actual fact it’s very hard to do that,” Martin reveals.

The voice that emerges from these poems captures the essence of a man whose sense of self is the accretion of so many parts, slowly, inevitably coming together—and, as they add to the whole, the center of gravity adjusts as well. The result is an emotionally dangerous yet ultimately hope-filled portrait of a life fully lived.

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