Jan Zlotnik Schmidt’s new volume of poems, published by Kelsey Books (2026) with cover design by Shay Mulligan and cover photo by Dylan Todd. ISBN: 979-8-90146-883-8
This stellar new book of poems, old and new is divided into four sections, each with numerous poems address the stated theme and subject matter.
I. Visions of Love and Loss; II Images/Memories; III. There is Nothing New About Grief; IV. Rose Petals Falling in the Grand Canyon
Jan Zlotnik Schmidt’s new poetry volume, Rose Petals Falling in the Grand Canyon: New and Selected Poems, holds treasures that offer finely drawn observations and insight. Each poem invites additional readings for even deeper connections, both with the pieces and with ourselves. In four focused sections filled with poems old and new, Jan Zlotnik Schmidt offers studies of our humanity through love and loss; memory; the grieving process, and place, both physical and emotional. In her most ambitious book to date, this volume will remain a major literary achievement enabling us to understand who we are.
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Jan Zlotnik Schmidt was a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita at SUNY New Paltz in the Department of English. Her work has been published in many journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, Broadkill Review, Cream City Review, Home Planet News, Kansas Quarterly, Memoir (and), Vassar Review, and Westchester Review. Her work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize Series. She has had two volumes of poetry published by the Edwin Mellen Press (We Speak in Tongues, 1991; She had this memory, 2000). In addition, she coauthored with Laurence Carr an anthology of women’s writing from the Hudson Valley: A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Writers of the Hudson Valley (Codhill, 2013), which won the USA Best Book Award for an anthology. Her poetry books include: Joseph Cornell: The Man Who Loved Sparrows, with Tana Miller, (Kelsey Books, 2024),The Earth Was Still (Finishing Line Press); Hieroglyphs of Father-Daughter Time (Word Temple Press); Foraging for Light (Finishing Line Press); and her chapbook about the life of Bess Houdini, Over the Moon Gone: The Vanishing Act of Bess Houdini (Palooka Press).
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