Houston, Texas – June 25, 2023 – Press Release: Saint Julian Press is proud to announce a new book of poetry, TOOLS & ORNAMENTS, by author Tracy Rice Weber to be published on September 15, 2023. Beyond air & water, beyond food & shelter, do we also require beauty to survive? And can there be beauty without connection to the divine feminine, keeping inventory & order? A cairn of poems built from the weight of physical and spiritual inheritance, Tools & Ornaments leans against a heroic crown of sonnets, piecing together a life that ends as an act of mercy.
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In Tracy Rice Weber’s Tools & Ornaments, shadows help us see who we are and fill in what might be missing, what we work to save. Mercy is found at the bottom of a purse, in the outline of a wrench, on the other side of a creaking screen door. The mother holds most secrets, and the tide gathers all in her wake, a weight, and compass for sons, daughters, and mothers to come. Somehow, here, memory is precarious but still precious. The minutia of our ordinary living adds up to an extraordinary love and harboring. These brilliant poems are odes to what we most overlook—the granular and gritty spun to silk in Weber’s deft hands.
—Remica Bingham-Risher Soul Culture and Starlight & Error Tracy Rice Weber’s Tools & Ornaments, a multigenerational study of complex emotional territory, illustrates the poet’s astonishing ability to embody images with imagination. These poems reveal bold devastation and radical tenderness, a monument to family devotion. She deepens our understanding of the human experience and renders us hopeful through divinity. Rice Weber’s mastery of the Heroic Crown of Sonnets, skillfully interwoven through the book, presents an unprecedented accomplishment in contemporary poetry. Thirty years in the making, Tools & Ornaments teaches us to embrace vulnerability and live fully each day.
—Elaine Fletcher Chapman Hunger for Salt and Reservoir |
Each poem in this beautiful collection navigates the distance between the physical and emotional worlds. Rice Weber pays equal tribute to the tools and the natural phenomenae that shape and anchor our lives, so this book becomes a lifeline. Rice Weber is a keen and compassionate observer, and this collection is the best companion and antidote to loneliness or fear in a changing world.
—Marie Mutsuki Mockett
American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland
—Marie Mutsuki Mockett
American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland
More than lyrics, a poem is both made and mystical, capable of holding the many languages of our joys and griefs. But it is no mere ornament — we keep the artifacts of our very living in the poem. In turn, the poem keeps us — allowing brief order and mercy, windows of truth lit by fireflies. If, as Tracy Rice Weber writes, “a man may be/remembered by what his hands made,” the poet’s craft is as exacting as any architect’s or builder’s. After the poem is made, it too must weather the vagaries of time and fickle readership. But I know these beautiful, exacting poems in Tracy Rice Weber’s Tools & Ornaments will reward readers for a long time.
—Luisa A. Igloria
Maps for Migrants and Ghosts
20th Poet Laureate of Virginia, Emerita
Maps for Migrants and Ghosts
20th Poet Laureate of Virginia, Emerita
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Longtime educator Tracy Rice Weber now teaches Creative Writing and Literature to undergraduates at Old Dominion University and poetry workshops for The Muse Writing Center in Norfolk, VA. A graduate of the ODU MFA Program, her work can be found in River River, The Bangalore Review, on Poets.org as a recipient of the Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize, and forthcoming in CALYX. In 2021 her chapbook, All That Keeps Me, was published by Finishing Line Press. She lives with her husband and sons in Hampton, VA.
Longtime educator Tracy Rice Weber now teaches Creative Writing and Literature to undergraduates at Old Dominion University and poetry workshops for The Muse Writing Center in Norfolk, VA. A graduate of the ODU MFA Program, her work can be found in River River, The Bangalore Review, on Poets.org as a recipient of the Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize, and forthcoming in CALYX. In 2021 her chapbook, All That Keeps Me, was published by Finishing Line Press. She lives with her husband and sons in Hampton, VA.
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Publication Date: September 15, 2023
Paperback: $18.00 Publisher: Saint Julian Press, Inc. Language: English Paperback: 84 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-955194-16-7 For an advance copy, contact: Ron Starbuck or Tracy Rice Weber. |
Press Release PDF
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Available Through ~ Ingram Content Group ~ Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ IndieBound ~ Bookshop ~ Book Depository (UK) ~ Fine Book Distributors & Retailers
Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com
Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com
SAINT JULIAN PRESS, INC. © 2022
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As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.