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GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — “To write a poem is to fall in love with the world,” said local, award-winning poet Sandra Dorr.
“I like the Buddhist idea that everything that has ever happened up to now, everything that exists, is contained in this moment. Then it falls away, and there's another moment. A poem is whole, in that way; in its stillness, it contains everything.”
Dorr said she considers her new book of poems “Desert Water” as “rhythmical meditations on living in the desert.
“Sometimes it's the (Grand) Mesa; sometimes it's the wild mustard. It's the two rivers running through here. It's the sound of the canyon wren, the fossils, the smell of wet sage,” said Dorr, who moved with her family to Grand Junction in 1997.
Dorr also writes about the “dark and the light,” love and hardship, in her own family.
“Pieces of your life emerge and become a poem. It's almost like a fossil. You look at it and you're surprised to see it.”
Dorr will recite and read poems from her book at the Mesa County Public Library, Tuesday, July 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Widely published poet and author of “Swear the Burning Vow: Selected and New Poems, 2009,” Marilyn Krysl said this about “Desert Water” — “These poems reiterate world — its animal weight, its succulence, its liveness. Dorr knows that only by way of the multitudinous, minute particulars may we enter the Oneness. This book lifts — it has heft, and song — song that feeds us.”
Dorr is author of numerous published essays and short stories, two books on women's health and travel, and poems that have been featured in “The Writer and Rosebud,” “New Delta Review,” Louisiana,” and “Salt Hill,” at Syracuse University. She won first prize from the Colorado Poetry Society and two state literature awards.
“Desert Water” was several years in the making. Several different forms are represented in the 23-poem volume — there is one haiku, and various others that work in stanzas: couplets, triplets, quatrains, invented forms and one prose poem.
Dorr began writing the title poem “Desert Water” at a workshop she gave at St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass. The poem continued to come together while sitting by the Colorado River. She finished it on the banks of another river, the Dolores, while watching the swallows, and listening to the wind in the trees.
She said she hangs onto all of her writings, “because a poem doesn't happen all in one moment.”
“You can get an image, some lines, language, and then you have to wait for it.”
“Desert Water” was published by Lithic Press in Fruita.
“I feel really lucky to work with Lithic Press.” Dorr said. “We had a wonderful collaboration (with publisher Danny Rosen and book cover artist Martha McCoy). We had a kind of collaboration every writer dreams about.”
The book's cover is McCoy's drawing of a rare petroglyph discovered by McCoy and Dorr in Utah's Professor Valley near Moab.
Dorr worked as an editor and writer in New York for seven years before teaching at various universities in the West. She directed Washington State University-Vancouver's writing program during the 1990s. She's currently working on a novel.
Dorr began seriously writing poetry after she moved to Grand Junction.
“It's like writing the roots of yourself — getting this book out,” Dorr said. “It was necessary, helpful in writing the novel.”
Dorr teaches a writing course in Grand Junction each fall and spring. The class meets every other week for about four months.
She also leads wilderness writing workshops each year.
“Desert Water” may be purchased through Dorr's Web site at sandradorr.com, or from the publisher at www.lithicpress.com. It's also available at the library, at Amazon.com and will soon be available at local bookstores.
Reach Sharon Sullivan at ssullivan@gjfreepress.com.
“I like the Buddhist idea that everything that has ever happened up to now, everything that exists, is contained in this moment. Then it falls away, and there's another moment. A poem is whole, in that way; in its stillness, it contains everything.”
Dorr said she considers her new book of poems “Desert Water” as “rhythmical meditations on living in the desert.
“Sometimes it's the (Grand) Mesa; sometimes it's the wild mustard. It's the two rivers running through here. It's the sound of the canyon wren, the fossils, the smell of wet sage,” said Dorr, who moved with her family to Grand Junction in 1997.
Dorr also writes about the “dark and the light,” love and hardship, in her own family.
“Pieces of your life emerge and become a poem. It's almost like a fossil. You look at it and you're surprised to see it.”
Dorr will recite and read poems from her book at the Mesa County Public Library, Tuesday, July 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Widely published poet and author of “Swear the Burning Vow: Selected and New Poems, 2009,” Marilyn Krysl said this about “Desert Water” — “These poems reiterate world — its animal weight, its succulence, its liveness. Dorr knows that only by way of the multitudinous, minute particulars may we enter the Oneness. This book lifts — it has heft, and song — song that feeds us.”
Dorr is author of numerous published essays and short stories, two books on women's health and travel, and poems that have been featured in “The Writer and Rosebud,” “New Delta Review,” Louisiana,” and “Salt Hill,” at Syracuse University. She won first prize from the Colorado Poetry Society and two state literature awards.
“Desert Water” was several years in the making. Several different forms are represented in the 23-poem volume — there is one haiku, and various others that work in stanzas: couplets, triplets, quatrains, invented forms and one prose poem.
Dorr began writing the title poem “Desert Water” at a workshop she gave at St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass. The poem continued to come together while sitting by the Colorado River. She finished it on the banks of another river, the Dolores, while watching the swallows, and listening to the wind in the trees.
She said she hangs onto all of her writings, “because a poem doesn't happen all in one moment.”
“You can get an image, some lines, language, and then you have to wait for it.”
“Desert Water” was published by Lithic Press in Fruita.
“I feel really lucky to work with Lithic Press.” Dorr said. “We had a wonderful collaboration (with publisher Danny Rosen and book cover artist Martha McCoy). We had a kind of collaboration every writer dreams about.”
The book's cover is McCoy's drawing of a rare petroglyph discovered by McCoy and Dorr in Utah's Professor Valley near Moab.
Dorr worked as an editor and writer in New York for seven years before teaching at various universities in the West. She directed Washington State University-Vancouver's writing program during the 1990s. She's currently working on a novel.
Dorr began seriously writing poetry after she moved to Grand Junction.
“It's like writing the roots of yourself — getting this book out,” Dorr said. “It was necessary, helpful in writing the novel.”
Dorr teaches a writing course in Grand Junction each fall and spring. The class meets every other week for about four months.
She also leads wilderness writing workshops each year.
“Desert Water” may be purchased through Dorr's Web site at sandradorr.com, or from the publisher at www.lithicpress.com. It's also available at the library, at Amazon.com and will soon be available at local bookstores.
Reach Sharon Sullivan at ssullivan@gjfreepress.com.
