I’m excited to have a new book of poetry coming out from Montreal-based Phoenicia Publishing, who also published my Odes to Tools. Here’s the announcement.

Phoenicia is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication (January 2017) of Dave Bonta’s Ice Mountain: An Elegy.

After several weeks of daily walks in the Pennsylvania mountains with a temporary canine visitor, Dave began a new series of poems:

“I decided to see how much I could discover on my own, walking at a much slower pace but without the aid of a dog’s nose to show me where a coyote had paused or which hollow logs might harbor rabbits or porcupines. The exploration continued when I sat down at the laptop, and I often ended up writing about things I’d remembered or thought about as I walked.”

But there was a darker side, too. The Ice Mountain of the title is a nearby peak that was desecrated by a large wind farm, after a six-year struggle to fight it by local environmental groups who knew the turbines would have a huge impact on bats, songbirds, migrating hawks, and other species. Written as winter gives way to spring, the resulting short, daily poems are an elegy for an endangered ecosystem, as well as a celebration of its diversity and determination.

Ice Mountain will also have original linocut illustrations by Elizabeth Adams. Sales will benefit the environmental non-profit organization SOAR, Save Our Allegheny Ridges.

Click through for a delightful photo (excerpted above) by Rachel Rawlins of me falling through the ice on top of our mountain while the dog looks on with ears raised, as well as an example of Beth’s beautiful linocut technique. And be sure to subscribe to the Phoenicia newsletter for regular updates on all their publications.