Most everyone in this area knows Ellaraine Lockie. Most everyone in this area knows that Ellaraine is a writer. Most everyone in this area knows that Ellaraine is a poet. What most people might not know is that FootHills Publishing has just published a new book of Ellaraine's poetry called, "Tripping With the Top Down".
This hand bound book with a collage of Ellaraine's favorite things making up the cover costs $10.00 and is available at foothillspublishing.com. Inside are thirty-two of Ellaraine's poems that will leave you agog and atwitter when finished reading these poems.
Ellaraine said that at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon each room honors a famous writer.
So, how did Ellaraine Lockie become such a great writer? One theory is that her mother and father lived in B. M. Bower's old log cabin and even though Ellaraine never lived in that cabin, some of Bertha Bower's magic wore off on Ellaraine.
Ellaraine Lockie, when asked why she writes, and why this beautiful book, had this to say.
"Well, I am a poet and whatever I do or see or am involved with and whatever affects me ends up being in my poetry. I like to travel and I am blessed that I am able to do it. So, I end up writing a lot about what I see, what I do and what I encounter. If you are a writer, the world is your fodder."
Ellaraine went on to say that as poor as her family was, her mother always scrimped and saved and put a little money aside so that the family could see different areas in the summer. Some of the families travels included visiting Seattle, California, Grand Canyon, Texas, Oklahoma, Salt Lake and North Dakota.
As important to Ellaraine's love of writing was the encouragement of her older brother Walter. "The Mountaineer" is honored to publish the best poems that young Big Sandy writers write in a contest called the "Walter Gerson Poetry Contest" each year.
Probably Ellaraine knows this but that contest makes better writers out of Big Sandy kids and certainly makes a better newspaper out of "The Mountaineer" when those poems are published. "The Mountaineer" is also honored to print one of Ellaraine's poems each month.
So, how about that review of this new book you might be asking. "Cultural Weekly published a review of the book the first part of May.
"In signature style Ellaraine Lockie's "Tripping with the Top Down" leads with the senses, traveling from the sensual to the edgy. We are invited into Lockie's own, felt world, often carried to the very edge and then left to fend for ourselves. Wit, wordplay, layered nuance, literary allusion, cultural context, linguistic gymnastics---all are employed by Lockie to compel us to join in the journey, a road trip that takes the reader through shady city corners and wide open prairie, a dazzling array of experiences that sometimes pushes the
surreal.
Lockie takes us on a visitor's tour of Los Angeles----sometimes as unsuspecting tourists to less than savory locations. She bridges worlds through a personal and often intimate lens, where suspense is key. These are wonderful portrait-poems that clearly showcase the poet's ability to make the ordinary and extraordinary, holding up a mirror to what is missed or mistaken in our daily routines, celebrating subtle twists that challenge assumptions, excelling at both the unexpected moment and the deeply personal.
'Offerings to the Green Gods' sits at the fulcrum of the collection..Here we experience the absolute juxtaposition of the natural world upon the human-made, a welcome reversal of the conqueror: rather than paving a field to make a parking lot, a plot of ground is tilled to bring living growth and beauty to the pavement. A hopeful return.
And what a return it is! Back-to-back pairing of 'Coming home in a Haibun' and 'First time Montana' shifts gears to a serenity absent in the city poems., Clearly this is where Lockie's heart and soul find nourishment, where she is most at home. Both poems invite the reader into Lockie's beloved Montana landscape with both the experienced heart of a lover and the understanding vision of a newcomer.
From the smoggy city to the wild prairie, from the tawdry to the sultry, the mundane to the spiritual, the innocent to the unbalanced, within the paradoxes of life emerges a web of connection, evident within the pages of "Tripping with the Top Down", where there is something for everyone, not because Lockie attempts to speak to everyone, but because she speaks from her heard and her own rich experience."
How about this one as a sample? It is called "In Bed with Edgar At the Sylvia Beach Hotel".
What woman would think the ending
could be so exquisitely executed
in the arms of Edgar Allan Poe
That he could be more comforting
than all those support groups
books, herbs and hormones
This man who understood loss, mourning
and madness better than any of them.
Across the blood-red and black room
a stuffed raven witnesses the war
between acceptance and never-ending longing
for when life still bloomed and seeds flowered
A battle Lenore didn't live long enough to fight.
My resolve swings as polemic
as the plastic pendulum with scythe above the bed
Insomnia sends me to Poe's bookshelf
Where I find a tortured prisoner
who realizes there is no choice but death
before he is snatched from its immediacy
And I am rescued with him
Anxiety lifts with the moon which spotlights
the bricked-over passage painted on the wall
Not even the top of Fortunato's hat
squeezed from brick before his bibliophilic fate
keeps me from falling into the abyss of sleep
The circular vise of night
Hot and sweaty before the tidal wave of chills
An awakening in a pool so red and spread
that the maid will think abortion with coat hanger
Instead of a harbinger for barren
Or hell's fire flooded one final time
Cramps, craziness, leaks and stench
Being what the raven meant when it said Nevermore
