Alison Stone, Poet
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Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017)
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Ordinary Magic (NYQ Books, 2016)
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Dangerous Enough (Presa Press, 2014)
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Borrowed Logic (chapbook from Dancing Girl Press, 2014)
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From the Fool to the World (Parallel Press, 2012)
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They Sing at
Dazzle
Jacar Press, 2017
“With a jeweler’s lapidary skill, Alison Stone has
fashioned a string of gemlike poems that indeed (dare I say it?) dazzle—with
wisdom, wit, and brio. She’s crafted every line to a high polish, rich in metaphor and music. Wide-ranging in subjects—so much to catch
they eye—this book brims with “the shimmer, the shiver, the quicksilver / flickers. The sparkle, the dazzle of poetry. Readers,
enjoy!”
— Richard Foerster
Signed
copies available. In the
Stone,
For international orders, send a
check or money order from a bank with a
The postage & handling for
Ordinary Magic
NYQ Books, 2016
Award-wining poet Alison Stone draws from
her tarot in the latest collection. These 78 poems range from the archetypal
(The Fool, The Magician, etc.) to the everyday
situations of love, work, ideas, and conflicts that make up our lives. Mythical
figures from past and present appear—Prometheus and Persephone represent
court cards, as do Lou Reed and Steve Jobs. By turns witty and heartbreaking,
this book goes down easily enough to be
devoured in one sitting yet reveals greater depths
with each subsequent reading. Stone’s accessible lyrics move and
entertain
us with the struggles and
joys of what it means to be human.
“Ordinary
Magic”, Alison stone’s wonderfully titled book of Tarot-themed
poetry, returns the deck to its creative roots, for the cards were used to
inspire poetry long before they were drafted as a tool for fortune-telling. Her
cards on the Major Arcana, the 22 trump cards, follow
closely the themes and imagery of the well-known Rider deck, while zeroing in
on original details that make these symbolic pictures both personal and fresh.
But it's in the fifty-six suit cards, the so-called Minor Arcana, that Stone really
shines. Largely abandoning the "official" imagery of the scenes
(which are, in fact, only 100 years old), Stone allows the cards to suggest
ideas, memories, and personal stories for poems that are immediate and
alive."
—Rachel
Pollock
Signed
copies available. In the
Stone,
For international orders, send a
check or money order from a bank with a
&
Dangerous Enough
Presa Press 2014
“Stone is not a ‘literary’ poet (there are
enough of them). Her text does not depend on other texts. She is interested in
a woman’s truth, and has something hard won (but won) to give her
readers. This is strong poetry.”
—Allen Grossman
“Gorgeous work – not only
accessible, but tight as can be. I must say that Alison Stone’s
book is the first one I've read cover to cover within the first day of
reception. Remarkable work"
—David Cope
“Stone understands that poems, as
Robert Lowell encouraged, must be events in themselves and not merely records
of events. Whether psychological or philosophical, or advancing the intensity
of raw emotion, Stone’s poems are urgent and dramatic, put themselves and
by extension the reader, at risk."
—Thom Ward
“Stone offers lean and sparkling
poetry that invites us to join with it - poems that are, in their way,
multi-faceted spaces to explore, discovering what we may, and grafting what we
bring.”
—Verse
Alison reading poems from Dangerous Enough on YouTube
Pedestal
Magazine review of Dangerous Enough
Self-Interview about
this book at the end of this web page.
Signed copies
available. In the
Stone,
For international orders, send a
check or money order from a bank with a
&
They Sing at
Winner of the 2003
“If you're not careful, Alison Stone will devour you.
Although she announces in one
poem that love is a room she enters 'sideways,' Stone's appetite for the
physical and spiritual is never selective. It hunts down all things,
sacred and profane. The anaphoric poem "My Hunger" finishes 'Mangy
and mateless, /my hunger gobbles chocolate, sunsets,
'children, prizes, flame. /my hunger is an animal without a proper name.' ....
The
poems in Alison Stone's They Sing at Midnight risk many "nows." They image and idea, whisper and howl,
implore and grieve. Their versions of the mundane and the mystic engage
us, offer shape and texture to the 'messy bright life we are born for.'
But her poems also deliver the hard fact that 'decay is in the air,' and,
despite any hard-fought faith, we don't get out of here alive. As such
her poetics serve notice of the metaphysical amid the imminent, how Persephone
is always and forever descending and returning, death into life, and life into
death. Such wisdom is Stone's gift to us.”
—Thom
Ward, from the forward
"Stone slips a carving knife under the skin of convention, eviscerating appearances, revealing the
savage truth...Kill to get one."
—Hugo
Williams
Yes
Love
is a room I enter sideways.
Roots
of gut, branches of bone,
our bodies burn like trees.
Our
faces have left us.
Whatever
ties us to our name has vanished
in the owl’s beak.
Boneless,
we are maggots feeding
underneath the rock of the
dark.
Our
mouth opens to coral and stars.
To order a signed copy of They Sing
at Midnight
In the
Stone,
For international orders, send a check
or money order from a bank with a
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Borrowed Logic
Dancing Girl Press 2014
Pomegranate
Mother
warned, Sex is a trap.
Still, every teenager wants more
than flowers, more than stale, virginal green.
His lips, cool moss against my nape.
I traded sunlight for a romp
in the forbidden, a devoted mate.
My meadow-scent’s exotic here, so he’s eager
to please, writes me poems by the meager
glow of dying fireflies. If he’d only kick that mange-
infested dog out of our bed. Such horrid pant-
Ing!
Each tongue licks my face like meat.
To order
a signed copy of Borrowed Logic
In the
Stone,
For international orders, send a check
or money order from a bank with a
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Fool to the World
Parallel Press 2012
“The poems in this collection
make up a series in the voices of the Major Arcana of
the tarot. Stone’s poetry extends and complements her own work as a
visual artist in creating the Stone Tarot. The poems are rich with visual
language and are filled with stories of light, journeys, and transformation: If
you won’t dance, / then who’s the fool? / Inside my cloth bag
– apple, table, stallion, sky. / Come! The rich / cliff tempts like
wine.”
—Tim McLafferty, Verse
XIV. Temperance
Of course moderation is a piece of cake
for me; I am an angel.
I have had eternity to master balance,
and besides, it's easy to
stay
calm in any storm
when a rainbow arcs
perpetually
above my head like a giant
umbrella.
I understand you are only human.
Still, why let yourself be bumped from center
by recycled heart hungers or
the lust beast.
Throw away your book of rules. Stop boring everyone
with resolutions. Just plant
one foot on land, the other
in the cold school of the
sea.
To order a signed copy of From the Fool to the World:
In the
Stone,
For international orders,
send a check or money order from a bank with a
About the
Poet
Alison Stone’s poems have
appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Poetry
International, Chelsea, Barrow Street, and a variety of other journals and
anthologies. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin award.
Ms. Stone is also a
visual artist who spent nine years producing oil painting of the 78 images of
the tarot. The Stone Tarot is
available in stores and on the internet. (stonetarot.com). Ms. Stone has exhibited her paintings in
a variety of galleries, museums, and other venues in London, MA, RI, and NY.
She is a psychotherapist in private practice in
Links
Yellow
Rabbits Review of Ordinary Magic
Tarotpoetry Wordpress Review of Ordinary
Magic
Solstice
magazine review of Dazzle
Michael
Dennis review of Dazzle
Portage
Magazine review of Dangerous Enough
Les
Femmes Folles: Alison Stone writer
Forge
Journal interview with Alison Stone
Pedestal
Magazine review of Dangerous Enough
Tarot
poetry - Featured poet Alison Stone
Holistic
Psychotherapy, Yoga, and Reiki
Alison
Stone on the Joe Milford Poetry Show, 9/8/09
First
Book interviews: #16 – Alison Stone
Another
poet published by Many Mountains Moving Press
Featuring Alison Stone
| Library as Incubator Project
Alison
Stone on the Joe Milford Poetry Show, 3/27/14
Alison reading poems from Dangerous
Enough on YouTube
Miriam’s
Well: Poetry, land Art, and Beyond: 3 Questions for
Alison Stone
Self-Interview: The Next Big Thing
What is the title of your book? Dangerous Enough
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Among other issues, Dangerous Enough explores rites of passage --
adolescence, marriage, childbirth, the death of a parent.
What genre does the book fall under? Poetry
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the book?
I worked on the poems in this collection over a period of about twenty
years. Some of these are poems that, for whatever reason, were left out of They
Sing at Midnight.
What surprised you about people's reactions to the book? Everyone who tells me they have a favorite poem chooses a different
one.
What else do you want to tell us about the writing of this book? As I worked on the arc for this book I was surprised at how well they
fit together, many having been written so many years apart. The body, and time, connect them so they flow.
Who published Dangerous Enough?
Presa Press. www.presapress.com I am delighted to be among
their authors.
——————————————————————
Kathi Aguero tagged me for this interview. Her
wonderful collection After That was recently published by Tiger Bark Press. www.tigerbarkpress.com
I tagged Maxine Silverman, whose powerful chapbook The Transport of the Aim
addresses the relationship
between Emily Dickinson and Celia Thaxter (www.parallelpress.com) and Joseph Milford, whose
Cracked Altimeter is a rich journey through language, ideas, and emotion.