Abbotsford Times: Loss and Vision

Thanks to Christina Toth for her poetic article on Elsie K. Neufeld's Grief Blading Up chapbook launch.

Christina acknowledges that "loss is never welcome, but it comes to us nonetheless".  This is part of the universal value of Elsie's poetry, as Christine observed, is embedded in "the fabric of the natural world".

The critical point of this book, Toth points out "Those who know loss will also recognize the undertone of something mystic, something ghostly in the wind."

Another poet, Robert Martens, said of the chapbook - that in spite of the subject, the poems are not grim at all but uplifting.

The way to keep the world sane is that we (who hold so much influence over nature, the future) must acknowledge our losses, our grief, our rage against what we can't control - so that we don't project our anger onto the innocent other.

BC Bookworld

BC BookWorld's latest issue has reviewed Heidi Greco's "A: The Amelia Poems" on the second page of its printed magazine, under the abecedarian "Who's Who".

You can pick up this amazing 42 page periodical at many retail sites for no cost. It contains the latest books published by BC writers and includes some reviews as well.

Due to the sudden removal of all provincial funding from Pacific BookWorld News Society, they are in financial trouble. You can support this excellent paper by sending $25 to Pacific BC BookWorld News Society at 3516 West 13th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6R 2S3. Or visit www.bcbookworld.com and use PayPal.

Footnote: I don't know if this is a true perception or not but I sense that the community and arts programs that are working well in terms of their contribution to civil society are having their funding cut. If that's so why would that be?

Grief Blading Up into a shared community

The launch for Elsie K. Neufeld's first poetry chapbook "Grief Blading Up" was a warm and comforting experience.

Grief connects us all when it is told through authentic reflection. As Elsie read her poems there was a palpable peace in the gallery of the MSA Museum.

Thank you Elsie for having the courage to share the deepest aspects of your heart and your life so that we may understand we are not alone, and not obliged to pretend that all is good all the time.

Thank you to the MSA Museum for providing the room, coffee and juice, and to Dorothy, the Executive Director, for being so supportive and generous.

And thank you to all who came.

Book Launch for "Grief Blading Up"

Lipstick Press and MSA Museum
invite you to the launch of
Elsie K. Neufeld’s
first poetry chapbook
Grief Blading Up
7pm, November 19, 2009
at
MSA Museum
2313 Ware Street, Abbotsford V2S 3C6
Tel: 604-853-0313

Please RSVP: lipstick@smartt.com
Books will be available for signature and purchase
for $8.00 each

What Darcie Hossack says about Grief Blading Up

It's late, almost midnight. The neighbour's dog is howling his loneliness, annoying to a lover of cats, but still full of sorrow from one being to one who can't help but hear. Your poems arrived yesterday, and after a busy day, I've been leaning against the kitchen sink in the almost dark (I always wash up in the dark), dishes dripping into the tray, reading poem after poem, feeling
air fall over my skin as though I'm suddenly outside, with soil and graves beneath my feet. Elsewhere, you are in the world, and somehow the world feels less cold for my knowing.

Darcie Friesen Hossack
Mennonites Don't Dance (Thistledown Press, September 2010)
A collection of prairie stories that form a picture of family, often torn apart at the seams.

Winter Gifts available now

 Keith Wilkinson's chapbook of poetry will be available for your seasonal gift list. The gift itself is intelligent, thoughtful, moving, and best expressed by Keith's first poem in the collection:

The greatest gift
A gift is an ocean between two continents,
a continent between two seas, an unruly bridge
that conveys explorers, returns exiles,
seeds whole civilizations.

Within a gift, old tongues touch new ears,
old ears receive new minds; ideas
join into a newness that everyone
can celebrate in song.

The greatest gift of all to give
is the one the giver wants to keep,
the one too precious to be given, too loved,
too dear, too near the heart, too tender to be tendered.

This gift, when given, gives its giver too—reveals, releases,
conveys, enchants—and is given always, only, with the deepest,
guileless trust of its receiver, given unconditionally
by the heart, with love that transforms the giver.


Keith grew up on the prairies, traveled extensively, earned an interdisciplinary PhD on metaphor, and published in ARC, Canadian Dimension, Canadian Literary Review and The Malahat Review. He currently writes, serves as a Canadian Unitarian Council transitions consultant and works as Director of Academic Services at the Justice Institute of BC.

Published by Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road, RR 1
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1

lipstickpress@shaw.ca


ISBN: 978-0-9781204-4-3

Printed in British Columbia, Canada

$8 each plus postage
To order send an email to lipstickpress@shaw.ca

Amelia is Airborne again

Amelia is getting some air time now that the movie starring Hilary Swank is out. This is good news for A: The Amelia Poems, also getting some air time in this weekend's Vancouver Sun - page C6 of the Weekend Review.

Thanks go to abcbookworld for giving the book some wings on author Heidi Greco's bio.

Grief Blading Up available September 29, 2009

The title of Elsie K. Neufeld's latest poetry collection, available through Lipstick Press, reveals loss and grief as they work through the seasons of birth, growth, death and re-birth of a garden.

The chapbook epigraph alludes to the indefinable spirit:

on a grey day
a yellow leaf
scrambles across
the road

who’s there?

This fleeting question acknowledges the way we are haunted without attaching it to a theory. Elsie's poetic gift addresses what is often felt but can't be seen. She is no stranger to that presence.

Elsie grew up with stories that brought home the ghosts of her ancestors who never made it out of Russia. As a young girl she would write to family she had never met, and couldn't expect to meet, as they were in Siberia and Germany.

Later losing a brother, a brother-in-law, a father, a sister-in-law, and several dear friends, established too early the fleeting aspect of all forms uniting in grief: "Trees startle, / colours drift off as we continue / to learn – as everyone must – / the terribleness of unhinging /" (Mums on the Stairs, page 17).

"Family, friends, memoir work, reading, gardening and volunteering with hospice continue to befuddle, challenge, astonish and enrich" her life, and so Elsie concludes "that life is, and always will be, a mixture of muck, madness and glory. Writing is the perfect container for all. Hence, Grief Blading Up."

Published by Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road, RR 1
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1

lipstickpress@shaw.ca

ISBN: 978-0-9781204-3-6

24 pages

Cover photo: Janet Vickers

$8 plus shipping and handling
To order send an email to lipstickpress@shaw.ca
(We are currently out of stock of this book, but if you let us know you would like a copy, we will look into re-printing a second run)

Book Launch for A: The Amelia Poems

There is a warm feeling when people gather for a chapbook launch. The link between a writer's creativity shared with friends, family and peers, is reminiscent of a child naming ceremony - a celebration of something we all knew was incubating now dedicated to the community.

Even though I had read the poems in this book many times, Heidi Greco's reading aloud, accompanied with her informative narration brought new depth to the skilled storytelling within the short poems.

Twenty seven people attended the launch at Pelican Rouge Cafe in White Rock, bringing their own questions and speculations about Amelia Earhart's life and the times in which she lived.

But something equally as interesting, enriching even, is the sense of community when we gather to celebrate the imagination - even listeners become co-creators of culture by participating in the event.

Special thanks to Shelly at Pelican Rouge for opening up the cafe this evening for the launch.

(Photographs by George Omorean)

A: The Amelia Poems chapbook launch

You are invited to the launch of Lipstick Press' latest chapbook

A: The Amelia Poems

by Heidi Greco

September 16th, 7:30 - 8:30pm

Pelican Rouge Coffee Shop
White Rock

for further information and to rsvp contact: lipstick@smartt.com

A: The Amelia Poems available July 16

Lipstick Press is pleased to announce its latest chapbook, A: The Amelia Poems by Surrey writer Heidi Greco.

The poems offer a speculative spin on the life of aviator Amelia Earhart, and consider what might have happened after her disappearance in 1937.

They begin with a tender Christmas orange. The skin too acid to digest must be peeled to reveal a globe of sweet fruit. A perfect image of the sweet/sour resolution that comes with a determination to soar above the ordinary, to fly in the face of danger and to hold that "spicy globe" in the palm of a hand and say yes.

Greco is a gifted poet who shows great sensitivity in her exploration of this aviator's courage and intelligence, allowing the reader to visit Amelia in her darkest and most radiant moments.

Think of this tiny chapbook as an artefact left by Earhart, a call that asks the reader to remember “pure Amelia.”


Published by Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road, RR 1
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1

lipstickpress@shaw.ca


ISBN 978-0-9781204-2-9

28 pages

Cover design: George Omorean & Heidi Greco

$8 plus shipping and handling
To order send an email to lipstickpress@shaw.ca

That was then, this is now

Lipstick Press started out as a self-publishing outlet, printing two small books of poems. "You Were There" published in 2006, and "Arcana" published in 2008.

Lipstick is now branching out to publish other poets. The first one coming out this year is "A: The Amelia Poems" written with depth and sensitivity by well known BC poet, Heidi Greco. It is a beautiful exploratory tribute to the "first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane, first woman to pilot an aircraft across the Pacific, first woman to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross."