POET & PAINTER
THE YELLOW SWEATER
By Margot Wizansky
The title poem, “The Yellow Sweater,” describes the evening Margot Wizansky’s father met her mother in 1936, when she was 19, he, 21. The cover image is the drawing he did in that life-drawing class, a drawing that somehow survived. The poems look at her parents’ loving relationship, ended too soon by her father’s heart disease. She writes of her mother’s long life and slow decline and her own turbulent early loves. “The Yellow Sweater is a song of love in all its forms,” says Elizabeth Sylvia, “a lifetime of loving people and the stunning beauty of the world despite the risks that can rend us from our beloveds.” Available through Kelsay Books and anywhere books are sold online.
WILD FOR LIFE
By Margot Wizansky
“With precise language and deep self-awareness Margot Wizansky writes her way through the aftermath of a near-fatal medical emergency that left her in a week-long coma and months of gradual rehabilitation. Her poems thoughtfully consider her family’s stunned love in crisis…the careful dance of redefining intimacy with her husband as her body and mind return to her…”
– Robbie Gamble
WHAT THE POEM KNOWS: A TRIBUTE TO BARBARA HELFGOTT HYETT
By the members of PoemWorks
Edited by Margot Wizansky and Wendy Drexler
Barbara Helfgott Hyett is a beloved poet and poetry workshop leader. For those who have known her and worked with her for decades, and for those who came more recently to her table, she never failed to inspire with her creativity, insight, and her gifts with word and image. In 2019, Barbara was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and lost the ability to do the work that had been her passion and her life. This book is a tribute to Barbara by her students in PoemWorks, the Workshop for Publishing Poets.
SWEETIE, SWEETIE
By Margot Wizansky
A tribute to a friend, as she lay dying, and after, the outer limits of friendship, and the love.
MERCY OF TIDES: POEMS FOR A BEACH HOUSE
Edited by Margot Wizansky
Illustrations by JP Powel
Poems of the sea as “antidote to our suffering the state of the world…Before the sea we are small and helpless; we do our penance, ask for absolution. For all that is dark and unknowable, the sea is astounding, like poetry.”
ROUGH PLACES PLAIN: POEMS OF THE MOUNTAINS
Edited by Margot Wizansky
Illustrations by JP Powel
“What’s most magic…in these mountain poems, is how they shake you out of ordinary time. One moment your focus is straight ahead and miniscule…And then, the next moment, there’s the view to ‘take your breath away’…speaking of geologic ages.”
– Peter Gould