Two new books by local poet Janet McMillan Rives (janetmrives.com) were released this spring. On Horsebarn Hill: Poems (Kelsay Books) is the author’s third poetry chapbook. Gene Twaronite notes that “In these searing yet joyous memory poems, Rives takes the reader back on a journey to where it began.” That beginning was the upstairs apartment in a farmhouse on the edge of the University of Connecticut campus amid various barns, pastures, and fields. Her early childhood in this locale set the stage for the author’s appreciation of nature, solitude, and family as reflected in this poetry collection. Thread: A Memoir in Woven Poems (Finishing Line Press) took shape several years ago in a class sponsored by The Learning Curve of Tucson. Realizing that Rives enjoyed writing both poetry and memoir, the instructor, Molly McKasson, suggested she create hybrids in which memoir prose is woven into existing poems. “With chapters moving around in time and place, with lines of poetry that sharpen the focus, [Rives] takes us vividly into what the child saw as a cathedral of trees, to explore memory and beauty and poetry itself, to discover the connections threading past to present,” writes Meg Files.
In mid-August, Rives participated in a poetry reading at the Peregrine Book Company in Prescott, Ariz. She was joined by Bonnie Wehle of Tucson (bonniewehle.com) who read from her poetry chapbook, A Certain Ache: Poems in Women’s Voices (Finishing Line Press) and from her new collection, Little Altars (Kelsay Books, forthcoming 2025).
Janet Rives will be reading her poems as part of TAPS (Tucson Arts Poetry Series) on Saturday, Oct. 26 at 3:30 p.m. at the Tucson Desert Arts Museum, 7000 E. Tanque Verde, Tucson. All are welcome. Meanwhile, be sure to check the Mountain Shadows Presbyterian Church website for updates about the reading (mountainshadowschurch.org). Although Mountain Shadows’ library has copies available for checkout, these books are available from the publishers and at Amazon.