Dazzling new poetry collection from Nancy Willard

Nancy Willard's dazzling new poetry collection came out this week: THE SEA AT TRURO, published by Knopf!  Willard was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for the collection WATER WALKER.  She is also a prolific children's book author and a Newbery Medal winner for A VISIT TO WILLIAM BLAKE'S INN (which also received the Caldecott Honor for illustrations by Alice and Martin Provensen).

In this collection, her eleventh, Willard presents another stunning display of her talents.  As Knopf's jacket copy notes, THE SEA AT TRURO is about "the magic hiding in the ordinary days of our past and present," as well as "the natural world that witnesses these revelations, and the myriad, often surprising ways in which it intersects with our own human lot."

Willard's poem Grave is a testament to just this:

Grave

Last year four men planted you under a stone.

Today I plant the dumpy heart of a narcissus.

Sharing your bed, it will wake up singing.

Don't miss out on this beautiful collection from a talented author!  Below is a sample of several of the excellent reviews Willard's poetry has received over time:

"Her imagery is both elemental and ethereal, her characteristic forms the litany, elegy, and ballad. While she doesn't shy away from singularly painful subjects, her overriding impulse is to celebrate the ordinary." --Gardner McFall, The New York Times Book Review

"This poet possesses wit and skill in abundance, and she has a highly individual way of seeing and telling. If Willard writes with lyric grace, she also achieves tautness in poems wrested from pain and anxiety. She has a feeling for the grotesque and earthy, for the fanciful and surreal in so-called reality. Her vision, irradiated by a sense of humor, affirms both life and the art of poetry." --Robert Hayden, poet

"One of our most consistently original imaginations, Willard is a true magician generous and wise...A superb selection that should serve to remind readers of her high level of accomplishment over many years." --Field

"A magician of the simile and the stunning metaphor. Nearly every poem includes striking images...For [Willard], all cosmic matter is magically configured, even angel-struck, not least of all everyday objects, animals, flowers, vegetables, and fruit...An original approach...At once utopian, enchanted, and thoroughly concrete." --John Taylor, Poetry

"The poems are at once down-to-earth and magical, innocent and wise. Nancy Willard is a true original. Her book is enchanting in the real sense of the word." --Linda Pastan, poet

Knopf, October 2012