“Perhaps what is most impressive is Ren Powell’s certain hand as she ventures far beyond the familiar when it comes to associations and images, to create remarkable beautiful lines of verse, the likes of which are seldom seen.” – Helge Torvund
“With uncompromisingly direct language and powerful imagery, her work comes from a vision similar to that of Flannery O’Connor or Cormac McCarthy: powerful images of a truth that slips aside just as one turns to view it straight on.” – Laura Kennelly
“Ren Powell takes the world in whole, ‘negotiates a new language,’ and gives it back to us in all its terror, strangeness, pain, and beauty. Many of these poems read like fable: a woman in a gown of eggshells, a stone turtle that captures the essence of a childhood. Other poems testify to the resilience of the human spirit even after the unspeakable happens. I loved these poems for the freshness of the language, for their deep truths and most of all for their compassion.” – Patricia Fargnoli on Mercy Island.
Mercy Island: New and Selected Poems. Phoenicia Publishing
by Ren Powell (For more information: click here.)
Books Available in/from Norway: If you are having trouble ordering through the Norwegian website, please send me an email and I can arrange a purchase through PayPal.
E-book available!
The Elephants Have Been Singing All Along. (2017)
by Ren Powell. Wigestrand forlag (Press). Norway
(For more information: click here.)
An Elastic State of Mind:
D.L.D.’s Autobiography in Poems (2011)
by Ren Powell. Translations, Eirik Lodén. Wigestrand Press.
(For more information: click here.)
The imaginative autobiography in poems formed the basis of Ren Powell’s Ph.D. thesis at Lancaster University. Powell’s meticulous research was drawn from published and unpublished documents by historians and psychologists, as well as D.L.D.’s own letters, memorials, and books.
An Intimate Retribution (2009)
by Ren Powell. Translations, Eirik Lodén. Wigestrand Press.
(For more information: click here.)
mixed states (2005)
by Ren Powell. Translations, Eirik Lodén. Wigestrand Press.
(For more information: click here.)
Fairy Tales and Soil (1999)
translations by Tor Obrestad. Wigestrand Press.
(For more information: click here.)
ANTHOLOGIES with various publishers:
Poets on Prozac
Ed. Richard M. Berlin, M.D.
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Poets on Prozac shatters the notion that madness fuels creativity by giving voice to contemporary poets who have battled myriad psychiatric disorders.
The sixteen essays collected here address many provocative questions: Does emotional distress inspire great work? Is artistry enhanced or diminished by mental illness?”
Letters to the World:
Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv Poetry
Ed. Moira Richards, Rosemary Starace, Lesley Wheeler. Ren Hen Press.
Letters to The World is the first anthology of its kind—a feminist collaboration born from The Discussion of Women’s Poetry Listserv (Wom-po), a vibrant,
inclusive electronic community founded in 1997 by Annie Finch. Letters to The World is a remarkable example of how the Internet has radically rearranged associations among poets, editors, and readers.