New Book Release

Available from Kelsay Books
and Amazon

ESCAPE and other poems takes us from legend and fairy tale, to a modern-day county fair. From angel wings over breakers in “Waiting on Your Wings to Dry,” to gloveless hands in “Chicago Winter 1978-1979.” To a Route 66 motel in “Past the Rest Stop,” where Night wind rocks / the boat, rattlesnake coils / the keel. We even witness a conversation with God in “The Big Question”: My Son would like this. He knows something / about wood.

Leslie Hodge threads her poems with the surreal and humor and truth. As a blue-collar worker, I felt those twenty oars as long as oaks, pulled by forty weary men, and recognized their boss in “Viking Queen,” with her eyes green as glaciers breaking. I feel something new with every poem.

T. R. Poulson
Best New Poets, 2022