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92 pages, paperback. March 18, 2018
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The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis
Luisa A. Igloria

Phoenicia Publishing is delighted to announce the publication of the latest book  by celebrated poet Luisa A. Igloria, her second title with our press. These unique, surprising, humorous and poignant "Buddha poems," written in early 2016, appeared online at Via Negativa, and they are collected here in print for the first time.

To quote from the book's foreword:

"Reading Luisa A. Igloria’s poems is like opening doors within doors within doors. These doors give access to the mind, the imagination, into lush and lyric worlds. The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis continues pushing this space the poet occupies—a space between the real and the dream...Poem after poem reveals the Buddha. S/he is sneaky and coy. S/he peeks behind every stanza, meditating at every end-stopped line, her robes overflowing in every layer of images. And in the end, after we’ve taken in every poem, s/he finds a place in the center of us."

-- Ira Sukrungruang, author of four books including Southside Buddhist, Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy, and the forthcoming Buddha's Dog and other meditations; professor at the University of South Florida and  AWP Southern Regional Chair.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Luisa A. Igloria is the winner of the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. She is the author of the chapbooks Haori (Tea & Tattered Pages Press, 2017), Check & Balance (Moria Press/Locofo Chaps, 2017), and  Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015); plus the full length works Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (selected by Mark Doty for the 2014 May Swenson Prize, Utah State University Press), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2014), The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), and nine other books. She teaches on the faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, which she directed from 2009-2015. Her website is www.luisaigloria.com
Luisa A. Igloria's elegant poems hold a humorous and truthful heart as an offering to the world. These are poems seasoned with such a wise understanding of this planet-- giving us brighter and lighter moments where there is "no weakness to confess our love of starry configurations, how we plot our movements by the shambled remnants of their distant light."
 
~ Aimee Nezhukumatathil, poetry editor of Orion magazine, is the author of four books of poetry: Oceanic (Copper Canyon 2018); Lucky Fish (2011), winner of the Hoffer Grand Prize for Prose and Independent Books; At the Drive-In Volcano (2007); and Miracle Fruit (2003), all from Tupelo Press. Her collection of nature essays, World of Wonder, is forthcoming from Milkweed in 2018.
"I always feel confident in Luisa A. Igloria's company - her poems are always well-crafted and full of heart. The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis is no exception, and is shot through with beautifully constructed phrases and spiritual truths. In it, we meet a version of the Buddha we can all relate to - one who admits that s/he is burnt out and decides to consult a therapist. These poems bring the Buddha down to earth and make it possible for us to make fresh contact with him and his teachings. I would urge you to spend time with all the life-affirming poems in this lovely collection."

~ Satya Robyn (Satyavani) is a Buddhist priest, writer, and co-founder of the mindful writing company Writing Our Way Home. With her husband Kaspalita Thompson, she is co-author of Just as You Are: Buddhism for Foolish Beings (Woodsmoke Press, UK). Satya is the author of A Blackbird Sings, a book of short poems; and 4 novels including Afterwards and The Most Beautiful Thing. She and Kaspa run the Amida Mandala temple in Malvern, the UK.
Luisa A. Igloria’s The Buddha Wonders If She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis combines the stunning emotional force of an opera singer in full flight, with the delicate, pinpoint accuracy of a haiku. These poems capture spherised moments of epiphany, and exquisite devastation — “Every softness: forged by fire." Their deft virtuosity is a triumph. Brava!

​~ Ivy Alvarez is the author of Disturbance (Seren Books, Wales) and The Everyday English Dictionary (Paekakariki Press, London). She is the New Zealand Poetry Society’s editor for a fine line magazine, and an international editor for the first NZ/Aotearoa edition of Atlanta Review.​
Poet Luisa A. Igloria reimagines a 21st century Buddha with humor, compassion and wisdom in language that both startles and satisfies. Luisa’s Buddha goes on the internet, sips Prosecco from a mason jar, fills out job applications, forgets to use caller ID, subs for a weekly advice columnist, and, as the title reveals, wonders if she is having a mid-life crisis. “What would the Buddha say if he discovered his teenage son had an internet addiction?” the poet asks. This modern Buddha is both male and female, and both comedic and tragic, as s/he struggles to balance the daily absurdities of human greed and appetite with a simultaneous longing for beauty and transcendence.
 
~Tom Montgomery Fate is a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, and the author of Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father’s Search for the Wild (Beacon Press)