Tilt-A-Whirl on the Farm by Cele Bona

$13.99

 

Reader, prepare yourself.  This riveting collection of unabashed, deeply-felt outpourings—sometimes harrowing but always graceful and often perfectly gorgeous—are likely to place a hammerlock on your psyche for some time to come.  Far more poignant than simple expressions of sorrow or resentment, Cele Bona’s extraordinary narratives and meditations on a difficult life also provide solace, fueled by her own skillfully-honed survival tactics.  Not trained as a warrior, writes the poet of herself, she arose each day with arms outspread, / expecting blessings.”  Tilt-A-Whirl on the Farm is definitely one of those blessings.

–Marilyn L. Taylor, Wisconsin Poet Laureate Emerita, Author of Step on a Crack, 2016

 

Combine Robert Frost’s keen eye for craft with Wordsworth’s powerful play on the pastoral and you get Cele Bona’s Tilt – A – Whirl on the Farm. And yet, these poems could come only from Cele Bona. In their themes and in their tenor, they are contemporary, authentic, sometimes heart-breaking — and frequently witty and wise.  In this age of debate regarding the purpose of poetry, Cele Bona’s collection leaves us without a doubt regarding what poetry can do in this world — and what poetry should do. This is a gorgeous and enlightening debut from a poet who knows her craft.

–M.B. McLatchey, author of The Lame God, www.mbmclatchey.com

 

I love this little book! What a breath of fresh air it is to enter Cele Bona‘s imaginative world of delight and wonder and to meet the curious figures of her past like the grandmother “who/smelled like a rusty pump” or, from the title poem, the spider in her spoon that is really just a ceiling fan “going round and round and round.”

 

So, sneak out of whatever is your version of a “hot farmhouse bedroom,” close “the screen without a sound,” and slip into that “water black, glimmering [with] a streak of milk/on top,” and swim alone among the “frogs and fish and weeds and let everything touch, brush, titillate” you: “ebullient, laughing out loud.”

–Bruce Guernsey, editor emeritus of The Spoon River Poetry Review and author of FROM RAIN: Poems, 1970-2010
Category:

Description

Tilt-A-Whirl on the Farm

by Cele Bona

$13.99, paper

978-1-63534-481-3

2018

Cele Bona grew up in the country near Joliet, IL. She fell in love with poetry as a child listening to her mother recite elocution pieces learned in high school.  As a teenager, with a long wait for a bus after school, she took refuge in a local bookstore. There she began to read randomly in poetry. The first poem she memorized was Hopkins’s “Spring.” 

Bona is a graduate of The Program for Writers, University of Illinois, Chicago, and received her BA from Marquette University. As an Adjunct Professor of English at the College of DuPage, Glenn Ellyn, IL, she taught Creative Writing and English. She conducts writing workshops and has worked as a journalist and public relations professional. Her poems have appeared in The Little Magazine, Marquette Journal, and Prairie Light Review.

Bona is the recipient of the “Jo-Anne Hirshfield Memorial Poetry Award,” sponsored by Evanston, Public Library, Evanston, IL.

She lives in Gurnee, IL with her husband, Chuck; they have three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

This is her first chapbook.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet.

Be the first to review “Tilt-A-Whirl on the Farm by Cele Bona”

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related products