Books published by Plain View Press, LLC

Shells, ears, damaged mirrors... the images in Karolyn Redoute's powerful new book, Whispers from the Aural World, conjure a mysterious emotional landscape that is as real as the lost city of Detroit where she grew up, and as heartbreaking as the silence between parents and children or, later on, between lovers. At times reading these poems I felt as if the Lady of Shallot had returned in the twenty-first century to speak to us again of the shadow world of personal isolation. Redoute makes us feel that there's hope, that through the discipline of poetry we can force the shards of broken glass into focus and find our whole reflections again. - Maura Stanton, author of Immortal Sofa The poems in Karolyn Redoute's new collection, Whispers from the Aural World, are powerful and evocative. They deal honestly with family, with the people and places of childhood, with the weight of memory. They ask the reader to confront all the things said, and left unsaid, to look into mirrors and through windows, within and without, in hope of movement towards healing. - Robert Pfeiffer, author of Bend, Break and The Inexhaustible Before Prophecy and memory exist on the same plane in Whispers from the Aural World by Karolyn Redoute. Children pause in the space between hours, a father drives a house like a car, and a staircase patiently anticipates turning into a story. With homegrown mysticism, Redoute discovers magic in the corners of rooms and in the corners of the mind, building a delicate bridge across childhood loss and wonder to an adult understanding of identity. - James Cihlar, author of The Shadowgraph

What a remarkable, sweeping collection from writer Ute Carson! This inspired arrangement of poetry, conveys the richness and poignancy of every life stage. Drawing from remarkable experience and striking particulars, she ultimately conveys the light of gratitude-"the clearing you spy / beyond a forest thicket." The poems are love songs to family and life itself, cyclical loss answered always by powerful renewal. -Judith Austin Mills, author of Accidental Joy, a Streak of Poetry and the Texas Revolution TrilogyUte Carson's poems are gifts she "lift[s] out one by one / and gingerly hold[s]them up / to the silver light of sunset." These poems are infused with the joys of grandparenting and the consolations that nature and memory offer while clear-eyed in their contemplation of aging and death. Standing in the tension between cherishing and letting go, her voice rings true in these poems as she says: "I know this is the life. / I would want no other." -Carol Denson, poet

Geneticist and Johns Hopkins professor, Mitzi Weaver finds her world turned upside down when three exceptional teens in her care abruptly vanish. She waits in the Bath County Sheriff's Office for Lieutenant Phil Jenkins, a hard-nosed veteran cop at the Virginia Bureau of Criminal Investigation and up-and-coming FBI Special Agent Clifton Cox. During intense questioning, they try to determine her involvement in the disappearance. Weaver recounts the lives of Ethan, Sara and Chetana, from their remarkable conceptions during a cosmic eruption that blankets the Earth with subatomic particles, to their unexplained disappearance fifteen years later. Are Jenkins and Cox capable of understanding the unique nature of these teens? What facts should she reveal? Will they believe the incredible truth? Under interrogation, Mitzi relates the gifted children's struggle to apply themselves and avoid opportunists seeking to exploit their unique abilities. The probing plot peers into the fields of genetics, physics and child development. Events move across continents and exotic locations—from the mountains of Colorado, to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, to a tiger sanctuary in India, climaxing in the mysterious disappearance at a lake in rural Virginia. Where are they now?———A stunning and unexpected flash lights the sky… Vic Rizzo pens the tale of a cosmic collision that impacts earth, causing a genetic increase in the intelligence of three children born at that instance. Aware of the effect of the intense energy in the explosion of the hypernova, a genetics professor tracks these gifted individuals, until they suddenly disappear and she finds herself accused of complicity. In a fast moving plot, relationships develop between well-drawn characters interacting on three continents in a struggle to understand the edge of metaphysics and science, where matter and energy meet.—Albert Noyer, Author of Alberix the Celt series and the Fr. Jake Mystery series. www.novels.albertnoyer.com

These poems are intuitive trails to an understanding beyond understanding. Mystery is a bottomless lake of fresh water. We stop for a little while and take a drink. We do not want to leave.—Joy Harjo, poet and musician; ten poetry books including Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings and She Had Some Horses; Guggenheim Fellowship, Josephine Miles Poetry Award, William Carlos Williams Award, and American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Kim Zabel's vision is spare and clean, looking through North Country eyes. These are ancient yet post-apocalyptic songs from a deep place, sung in a compelling new voice. Shadowprints is a testament, spoken in the mature, confident and prophetic voice of an old soul giving instructions to another about to set foot into the uncharted terrain of the spirit. Cormac McCarthy and Marilynne Robinson and even Jack London come to mind, with a dash of Galway Kinnell.—Ken McCullough, Minnesota poet, eight poetry books including Broken Gates, Academy of American Poets Award, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship  The poems mediate the relationship between human desire and the natural world with probing intellect and quiet, lyric force.—Julia Goldberg, award-winning journalist and author of Inside Story: Everyone’s Guide to Reporting and Writing Creative Nonfiction, faculty in the Creative Writing and Literature Department of Santa Fe University of Art and Design  There is serenity within these poems, between earth and sky, between faith and despair. Readers can find sanctuary here.—Linda Back McKay, Minnesota author of The Next Best Thing (poetry) and Out of the Shadows: Stories of Adoption and Reunion (nonfiction)   Kim Zabel's first book of poetry was made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.  

How Therapists Dance follows the numinous thread described by Novalis: The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap. As in the first poem, in which snails scrawl the names of Buddhas with their silvery trails and ends with the poet kissing his wife's hands, taking out the garbage, and being confronted with an overwhelming moon. These poems stitch together psychiatric ward encounters with the musings of security guards in an art gallery; an urban dance floor provoking a breakthrough for a stranded therapist; his father's empty shotgun shells, his aunt's accordion finding its way inside the body, ribs expanding and contracting as though you are an instrument life is still learning how to play. ? How Therapists Dance is the meeting ground for the spiritual seeker, the therapist and the observant poet who negotiates this tricky terrain and writes poems for them all. There is humor and longing, tenderness and beauty. Each of these voices has its say. From them I learn how enlightenment is spoiled by wanting it too much. How the dance of therapists is into and out of the skin of others. How Superman's true heroism is revealed. These are poems worthy of a long-term friendship. -Len Anderson, author of Invented by the Night ? Dane Cervine explores with a keen poet's eye the borderlands where the doctor meets the mystic, the adult meets the child he once was, the beauty and pain of life become indistinguishable. Deliciously full of joy, insight, and awe, Cervine's poetry certainly shows you how therapists dance. - Ellen Bass, author of The Human Line ? Dane Cervine often lets a wry humor open the door to a deeper place. His light stroke sets the reader at ease, invites us into "the mischief in the young boy's fiddle," the "almost tangible, humming in the air between us" where, even through sadness and hardship "a blue dragonfly whirs" and we come to know we are "wide enough, finally, for every jagged thing." His finely-wrought poems are a comfort and a compass. -Patrice Vecchione, author of Writing and the Spiritual Life and a poetry collection, The Knot Untied ? While Dane Cervine's first book, The Jeweled Net of Indra, was woven with themes related to social justice and our larger connection with each other, this new book is flavored with the act of "attention" shared by the triune influences of his work: therapy, meditation, and poetry. Dane Cervine's poems are at once disciplined, sturdy, compassionate and wise. And there's an inspired playfulness, as in these lines from his poem "Enlightenment Is a Bitch": ...even fire hydrants with their red stubby arms become mandalas, and worse, the police siren revving its wail behind/my slow-moving car sounds like a mantra... -Robert Sward, author of New & Selected Poems, 1957-2012 ? Regarding the poem "Accordions & Shotguns," a finalist for the Wabash: The sheer volume of information in this poem is impressive-which is to say that all that story is fluently delivered to the reader-but it is really the passion and precision of the final stanza that earns my full attention. --Tony Hoagland

This charming tale lifts the heart and stretches the imagination. Michael Osborne uses mystery and magic to tell the story of the gentle People of the Sun as they defend their land against the People of the Cities. One can almost see the Valley of Memories and the Mountain of Hope. Children and those young at heart can explore a place where Childpersons are schooled by the Muses and Elderguides use The Way to restore peace and harmony to the land. With just one more leap of imagination, one can envision a world where everyone lives The Oneness.How would the world look if humans lived in harmony with nature? Michael Osborne has created a rich answer in Day of the Heart He''s combined mystery with fantasy and invented a compelling vision of the future where some communities truly do live in peace and where Love is the most powerful "weapon" of all - powerful enough to defeat armies and transform the world. Charlie Lovings drawings are a magical addition to a book that will be enjoyed by children and adults alike.