Spoons in the Grass Are There to Dig a Moat

Amelia Martens is the author of the chapbooks Purgatory (winner of the Spring 2010 Black River Chapbook competition, published by Black Lawrence Press in 2012), Clatter (Floating Wolf Quarterly, 2013), and A Series of Faults (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her poems have appeared in such journals as Cold Mountain Review, The Connecticut Review, and The Madison Review, among others. Martens received an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University and lives in Paducah, Kentucky, where she teaches at West Kentucky Community & Technical College. A co-founder of the Rivertown Reading Series, she received an Emerging Artist Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council in 2010.

One of Literary Hub's 10 New Must-Read Collections Entropy Magazine's Ultimate Summer Reading List"Martens centers her debut collection of quietly poignant prose poems on family, religion, and myth as she seeks a fragile safety in an uncertain, violent world….Martens's stripped-down language is her greatest asset…. [C]harming and often profound… the personal touches soar, evidence of a solid poet finding her voice."—Publishers Weekly"Whether she is proffering chilling indications of an apocalypse, agonizing over an earnest apology, or conjuring the latent melancholy of bedtime, [Martens] remains both playful and precise, at once whimsical and commanding.... As tangible as it is surreal."—Booklist"Martens moves from the beautiful, imperfect moments of domesticity...to issues of global urgency. Often, as she waxes intimately philosophical, Martens embraces both family and the political…. VERDICT: An accomplished start-up from a poet to watch."—Library Journal, "Summer Poetry: 13 Smart New Collections from Debut and Veteran Authors Alike""The Spoons in the Grass are There to Dig a Moat is a book of prose poetry that packs a mighty punch for such a slim volume (64 pages, folks). Her writing is unassuming and unpretentious as, again and again, she reaches into the mundane and pulls out the extraordinary."—Literary Hub "Ten New Must-Read Collections""Amelia Martens’ richly imaginative first book... will likely be one of this year’s best debuts.... Grim assessments, juxtaposed with domestic studies that celebrate the whimsy and innocence of young daughters, render The Spoons in the Grass Are There to Dig a Moat a dizzying little book that yearns for escapism even as it insists on documenting our self-destruction.... Wondrous imagination, political astuteness, and refreshingly original voice."—Plume Poetry"At times wry, other times heartbroken, the speakers in these prose poems see tragedy and the potential for it everywhere….This material could easily fall flat or devolve into sentimentality, but Martens illuminates these stories from a different angle, using them to convey the distant witness of a worried mother."—Barrelhouse"In scenes pastoral and domestic...it reaches through the surreal in order to grasp some of the most exasperating, painful aspects of our daily lives.The Spoons in the Grass is overwhelming, and heartbreaking—a book that processes, through the unique mind of its author...losses upon losses, the love and impossibility of children, and a frequently alarming, but always strangely accurate, depiction of the country we live in."—Monkey Bicycle"You’ll never read a more playful book of doomsday poems than Amelia Martens’s The Spoons in the Grass Are There to Dig a Moat. Martens’s dark humor is delightfully paired with her astute observations of quiet pleasures. Her poems are grand with sweeping cosmic battles and frequent mentions of death and the end times, while also intricately small."—South 85

• The ApologyA FieldWe Will Be Long GonePostcard from The EndFree TimeMarathonPre-AliceAlready at WarDear Brian TurnerShorelineBedtimeWhen People Look to the SkyIn the First WorldIn God’s CountryB-I-N-G-ODon’t Miss Our Mower and Tractor SpectacularDirect ContactBaggageIn the First WorldIn the Land of MilkA Hundred Miles From the BorderMorning GirlAnd Then the Idea of WeedsLate Night ComedyCollectionIn the Days Before ThanksgivingPluto was a PlanetTuesdayUnionForecastThe Prince of Peace is Herding SheepInexplicable UniverseLocalized ExtinctionIn the Country of NeutralityWednesdayComing Forth to Carry UsRoutineWe Ask for Five MinutesThe Robin Pulls a ThreadAlmost Biblical Historical AccuracyPink Pigs and Orange HorsesDustPostcard from The End 2.0NewtownDisney Daughter Dead, 2013The Secret Lives of CowsMiddle AmericaBirth DayHeartwoodIn the First WorldPen PalThey Shoot People, Don’t They? Magicicada