THAT CERTAIN BLUE IBD

Sinopsis

To an Anchorage schoolyard invaded by a bull moose. Toa spot at Lord Rothschild?s tea table. To the uncharted,unfathomable territory of an aging mother?s dementia.To the end of a Chrysler assembly line in Detroit.With lively wit and an eye for striking imagery, SharonLask Munson takes us all over this world and throughgenerations of family history and lore. Her poems inviteus into both macrocosm and microcosm-that place inwhich 'Earth rotates on its axis/ and a vine maple dropsits last red leaf.' -Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet LaureateSharon Lask Munson?s fi rst full-length book, Th at Certain Blue, is charmingand tender. Munson?s unpretentious free verse invites the reader to engagewith her narratives of everyday life. Details about gypsy moths, a kiss on thepalm, Pearl Harbor, begin in the kitchen and ultimately plant us in Detroit(where she grew up), Alaska (where she taught school and fell in love), andOregon (where she lives now). Much like Marge Piercy, her poems are tingedwith references to her Jewish heritage. One cannot help but feel the truthsbehind her lines.-Laura LeHew, Editor, Uttered Chaos This is poetry about civilization: 'It all begins in the kitchen' and is sustainedby a poet?s clear memory and cameo-like vignettes of family, travel, and homesin Detroit, Alaska and Oregon. That Certain Blue 'brings a wistfulness' forthings past and passing. The poet cherishes simple pleasures, the here andnow of a full moon or the first day at school. The 'Six Years' of her mother?sAlzheimer?s is the worst fate: memory loss, loss of recognition and tradition,loss of the knack her daughter has of telling things exactly as they are.-Erik Muller, Editor, Traprock Books'As weightless as the one thin strand of hair/drifts toward first light,' writesSharon Lask Munson, and with those words she could be describing thepoems in That Certain Blue, poems which seem to fl oat above the page as theycarry us effortlessly from the 1950?s Detroit to Alaska?s Kenai, from a younggirl playing poker on Joey Silver?s porch to an adult daughter preparing forher ailing mother one last Spanish omelet. Munson is a certain navigatoracross this landscape of a well-wrought life: 'traveling the highway, visibilityclear/throttle up.'-Nancy Carol Moody, Poet, Photograph With GirlsAbout the AuthorSharon Lask Munson grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She attendedMichigan State University and Wayne State University. She taught forthe Department of Defense Schools in England, Germany, Okinawa, andPuerto Rico. After overseas teaching, Sharon drove her blue Oldsmobileup the Alcan Highway to Anchorage, Alaska where she put down newroots, taught school, married, and lived for the next twenty years. She isnow retired and lives with her husband, Keith, in Eugene, Oregon. Shehas poems in Verseweavers, Windfall, Earth?s Daughters, Drash: NorthwestMosiac, Th e Quizzical Chair, Goose River Anthology, Popshot, Punkin HouseDigest, and many other literary journals and anthologies. Her