Hover the Bones - Book of Poetry - Limited Edition

HOVER THE BONES
By Melisa Malvin-Middleton
Native Blossoms Chapbook Series Two, Book 2

This debut collection digs through the garden of the familiar “ties that bind” — family relationships — to unearth profound connections and upsetting loss. The nineteen poems included in this volume honor the memory of those lost with surprising honesty and emotional clarity. Presented in precise, yet musical language, these poems negotiate a complex landscape with contemplative grace.

*** Limited edition - out of print - signed by author. When these last copies are sold, they are gone. ***

- Paperback, 40 pages
- Published Feb 7, 2017
- Publisher: Yak Press
- Editor: Anne Yale
- Language: English

READ SAMPLE POEMS:

“Of Closure” published in Rogue Agent, Issue 21

“Spilled Childhood” and two other poems appeared in Clear Poetry 

“Civil Unrest” was featured as part of the “When I Moved” Poetry and Prose Series published by Silver Birch Press 

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

“In Hover the Bones, burying a miscarried child looks like planting a seed in a garden, and trimming vines feels like taking the place of a dead mother. The book’s epigraph from Audre Lorde reminds us that “we were never meant to survive,” and the final poem leaves us with a peaceful benediction: ‘May we be well. / May we be happy. / May we be free from suffering.’ Melisa Malvin-Middleton has created beauty out of darkness.

~ Katie Manning, Founding Editor-in-Chief of Whale Road Review, and author of Tasty Other and The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman

“These are tough, sensitive, and adamantly engaged poems that call us again and again to a vast interior complexity. Against the backdrop of personal and family history, the poems adhere to the commitment to find grace even in the face of illness and death. ‘May we be free from suffering,’ Melisa Malvin-Middleton offers quietly. This is a poet who translates turbulence with unswerving faith in language and song. She reminds us there are times when it’s simply ‘good enough to dig.’ In the face of all else that may fall down around us or away from us, I agree with her. This is an elegant debut.”

~ Leilani Hall, author of Swimming the Witch

“Melisa Malvin-Middleton’s work often obsesses with time, with the ‘what is,’ but also the ‘what once was.’ There is a sense of precious nostalgia in her poetry, but that nostalgia is always brewing with the knowledge that there is more at stake than just the act of remembering, because it carries a sense of coming loss or grief that has already arrived. Melisa’s work reminds us all of our own mortality, but more importantly, and heartbreakingly so, it reminds us of the mortality of those we love.”

~ Lusine Makarosyan

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Melisa Malvin-Middleton is a Los Angeles poet, playwright, artist, and musician who taught writing at California State University, Northridge and College of the Canyons. Melisa has read her poetry at places such as Skylight Books. Chevalier's Books, and the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Los Angeles. Her poetry has appeared in Silver Birch Press, The Ofi Press, Quail Bell Magazine, Rogue Agent, Angel City Review, and Clear Poetry, while her plays have been performed by Santa Cruz Theatre Company, Fresh Produce’d, and Savage Players. Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, Melisa now resides in Gig Harbor, Washington.