tender gravity

Marybeth Holleman is author of The Heart of the Sound, co-author of Among Wolves, and co-editor Crosscurrents North, among others. Pushcart Prize nominee and Siskiyou Prize finalist, she’s published in venues including Orion, The Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, Sierra, and North American Review. She taught women’s studies and creative writing at University of Alaska and held artist residencies at Mesa Refuge, Hedgebrook, and Denali National Park. Raised in North Carolina’s Smokies, she transplanted to Alaska’s Chugach Mountains after falling head over heels for Prince William Sound two years before the oil spill. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska.

"The poems range from kayak-level considerations of ocean life to close looks at a wetland sundew to views of the moon, comets, and the cosmos. They are, however, more than observations and celebrations of nature; they interrogate questions of life and death, responsibility to human and non-human beings, and the contradictions we all live with. "—Nancy Lord, Anchorage Daily News"Again and again Holleman interrogates humanity’s preoccupation with itself, panning out to remind us that the larger world does not bother itself over these momentary matters. However, there is also a delicate emotional undercurrent running through tender gravity—Holleman is not simply reminding us about the death of glaciers and the warming of the planet. Gradually the poet permits a small glimpse into a personal tragedy—the loss of her brother, a victim of gun violence—and it becomes clear that she is taking solace in this larger sense of cosmic indifference." -- Erica Reid, The Colorado Review