DISTILLATIONS New Poems

E. Smith Dunlap

ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-645-9 / 84 pages / paperback / 5” x 8” / $20

ABOUT THE BOOK

A new book of poetry by the author who divides her time between San Francisco and London. Distillations burnishes the gleam on even quotidian objects and moments. Like the author, these poems are unabashedly curious, hearty, and wise. Elaine has taken her time to publish this book, but her timing is good. Her memory is ripe. As she writes, “My shelves are full / Stocked with experience / Bought with choices / And ready / For whatever comes.” These poems are timely for me. To watch how she remains buoyant despite our planet’s distress. To avoid “the vicious nonchalance / Of being barely there.” I trust her judgment because the poems distill not just the “honeyed lure of culture,” but also rage. Together, they illuminate a path, “Searching the horizon/For some small sight / Of understanding.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elaine Dunlap has a great deal to say about a great many things and much of it appears in her poetry. 30 years teaching cultural history at a community college in California was only one facet of her quest for experience. Widely traveled in all the usual places, she went further than most exploring India, Antarctica and following the Silk Road  from China to Uzbekistan.  She now divides her year between London and a suburb of San Francisco fostering a uniquely bi-cultural perspective on her two worlds, especially the difference between traveling by cars or buses. Not a day goes by without her submerging herself in some notable theater, art or musical event. In 2012–13 she was an Olivier judge for alternative theater in London and still enjoys writing unpublished theatre reviews. Current technology makes it possible for her to indulge in frequent photography some of which appears in the pages of her poetry. She is married with two grown children and one grandson.