A powerful yet tender collection of poems that invites us to return again and again, spellbound as if in a dream.
Award-winning author and educator Sherre Vernon's collection of poems, Translating Blue, explores language, identity, and love, and considers how even in a lifetime of challenge and heartbreak one can find something beautiful and holy in this life. Whether she is writing about motherhood, friendship, sexuality, or swimming, her beautiful poems invite us in so we can't help but fall into their depths to be held and gently guided along. The collection includes both formal (sonnet, sestina, ghazal) and free verse poetry.
"Sherre Vernon's poetry suspends me - in time and between intimacies - holding space to breathe in deeply, to make sense of the ways our life's experiences accumulate and tug at each other. I'm electrified by the invitation to visit and revisit complicated moments alongside Vernon as she steps confidently and reverently between puddles of memory and floods of present. After reading this book, I feel I have expanded my understanding of love, of prayer, of power, and yes, of blue. I am grateful to be taken on a journey by Translating Blue, and for coming through the experience a little bit fiercer and a lot more tender." --Shana Ross, author of Heavy Little Things
"Sherre Vernon's Translating Blue brings the reader into an intimate world, just beyond reach yet right at the end of our fingers. These poems speak to past loves, a cherished child, the speaker's inner self in ways that allow us to bear witness, with a hint of being a voyeur or co-conspirator. Her language is bright and lush, inviting us to read a poem, a stanza, a line over and over to relish the music. Keep Translating Blue close at hand for those quiet moments when you need a step out of your own world." -Georgia A. Popoff, Poet Laureate of Onondaga County, NY, and author of Living with Haints
