chapbooks
In a handsome perfect-bound format, tales retold is poems giving new takes on stories from myth, fables, folk & fairy tales, even 20th-century news. Principal and minor characters offer their perspectives on what's happening.
"The life of the mind begins here."
-- Megan Marshall
author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
"The intelligent child [Bonnell] conjures up has a mind as supple and lively as these ecstatic, wry poems."
-- Miriam Levine
author of The Dark Opens and Devotion, a memoir
"The words a story in poems on the title page of Paula Bonnell's Before the Alphabet made me rejoice for narrative in contemporary poetry. Like all stories, these poems reveal a deeper story beneath the surface. I value this work greatly."
-- Nick Samaras
author of Hands of the Saddlemaker and American Psalm, World Psalm
poetry books
The world as peaceable kingdom is interrupted by wars and rumors of wars.
Lyric and narrative poems, including "Eurydice," a re-telling of the myth
poetry collection manuscript
This as-yet unpublished collection was a finalist in the National Poetry Series. "Plain Speech" and "Scenic Postcard" -- both reachable through the Quick Links below -- are from Abracadabra.