Night Highway by Barbara Koons
Praise for Night Highway:
"This is a gentle book, a haunted book that lays out its attendant
images of childhood, the wedding dress, the "red current between us"
of family and death. Down the night highway of loss, this book is a
long time coming. And worth the wait."
Alice Friman
"Barbara Koons' poems possess a clarity of wisdom that is rare these
days in poetry. No flashy pyrotechnics here, just an abundance of
heart and spirit."
Allison Joseph
"Barbara Koons' Night Highway takes us down a road of flickering shadows and haunting landscapes. Even when an embrace turns into a
paper memory in this ghostly land of snowdrifts and empty houses, the
emotion continues deep and true. These are brave poems of distilled
loss, spare and elegant and as 'silhouettes cut from folded paper.'"
Maura Stanton
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The daughter of an artist and a musician, Barbara Koons grew up in
Mansfield, Ohio, where she began her writing career as a reporter and
feature writer for the Mansfield News-Journal. She also has worked as
a free-lance journalist, editor, and teacher. A non-traditional
student, she earned her BA in English and MFA in Poetry at Indiana
University after her children were grown.
An active volunteer with the Writers' Center of Indiana for nearly 20
years, she served as events co-ordinator and also as director of the
Poetry In The Gallery reading series sponsored jointly with the
Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Her poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, Earth's Daughters, The Flying
Island, The Hopewell Review and other publications. She has received
a number of awards for her poetry, including semi-finalist status in
the "Discovery"/The Nation Competition in 2003. Night Highway is the
first collection of her poems.
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excerpts
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On the Night Highway
At midnight, winter sky
looses its summer transparency
in vapor trails riding
either side of the moon,
as if a lone vehicle has rolled
on giant wheels
across a vast black field.
The air is so still
I can hear silent bells
rusting in deserted churches,
their naves empty
of all salvation.
Sometimes
I drive all night
just because
I don't want to sleep alone,
trying to understand loss,
the hour never found
on the face of every clock.
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