In the rueful yet hopeful poems of Rescue Mission, Kathleen Dale mourns loss in its manifold forms but also finds possibilities of salvation, of learning new ways in which to rescue oneself, diving into deep waters and rising up from them, renewed. Even though our brief moments on earth may be easily-torn “webs spun through the slippery / spinneret of time,” there are, the poet suggests, those moments of unbridled joy in simply being that allow (no, compel) us, like the poet’s untrainable dog, to make straight for whatever is loved beyond reason. Early readers have resonated strongly to the perils and possibilities presented by the poems in Rescue Mission. Linda Aschbrenner, founder of Free Verse and Marsh River Editions, writes that “Kathleen Dale is not afraid of the dark. She faces and faces off with death in these radiant, haunting, deeply felt poems of remembrance…. Dale’s memorable words streak across life’s ravines. We need such authentic poems for our sustenance.” And this from Susan Firer, former Milwaukee poet laureate and winner of the Backwaters Prize: “Using idiom, stunning phrasing, fresh and engaging imagery, and a wide range of sonic pleasures,
A Pushcart nominee, Kathleen Dale is the author of prize-winning poems that have appeared in many national journals, as well as a previous chapbook, Ties that Bind. She has taught writing courses for non-regularly-admissible and non-traditional students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette University. In addition to teaching and writing poetry, she is a pianist who studies at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and has recorded two recitals of works by contemporary American women composers. Born in landlocked Kansas, she has lived for forty years on the shore of Lake Michigan and has learned in that time to swim, sail, and dive. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband, Steve Kapelke. They have three grown daughters. More about her work can be found online. Click here to read samples from the book, here.to see/hear Part I of a YouTube reading, and here for Part II. Click here to view upcoming events. Click here to read additional material relevant to the book. |
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BOOK STATISTICS ISBN 978-1-936482-10-8
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