Future Rounds the Curve
“These beautifully written, powerful poems will endure. Patricia Barone needed to write this book, for herself, and those she loves. We need to read it, that we might glimpse reflections of our own lives, in hers.”
—Michael S. Moos, poet and author of The Idea of the Garden
Praise
“In Future Rounds the Curve, Patricia Barone speaks to us in a let voice, about the passage of time, and how that journey urges us to live with fullness of heart in this present moment. In narrative, lyric meditations, she brings to life family, friends, animals, birds, childhood and er life experiences, bravely sharing her delight, pain, love, loss, and hard-earned epiphanies. “It’s funny how time expands / when distance contracts …” These poems are about the life of the soul. “Your cravings of body and spirit: / Record them, your last testament. / Rise up and sing for small joys.” Praising the natural world of flowers, bee’s cicadas as a symphony, she offers us her simple wisdom: “Love your life.” These beautifully written, powerful poems will endure. Patricia Barone needed to write this book, for herself, and those she loves. We need to read it, that we might glimpse reflections of our own lives, in hers.”
—Michael S. Moos, poet and author of The Idea of the Garden, winner of the Richard Snyder Publication Prize
“In Future Rounds the Curve, Patricia Barone has united poems of the personal – family, love and loss – with poems that engage the larger world and its chaos. The poem Why questions war: “In Ukraine, where rockets/ plow the fields.” The poet admits her limits.” Distressed by others’ pain. / I feel futile rage/ and turn away.” After a Black man is murdered by a white policeman, ‘shadows spread like blood.” In Time’s Spiral, she describes the isolation of the Pandemic. “No breathing in/someone else’s breath./No more touching.” Her poems describe borders – between the visual and the visionary, the ordinary and the ineffable. In You Will Morph, the only future is further change. “Next is not your death / but your transformation:// The itch you’ve scratched/beneath each scapula/ will be wings./ healing lesion./ or grace unforseen. // Urgent as your heartbeat.” This is a book of fragile hope in a shared and threatened world.”
—Mary Kay Rummel, author of Nocturnes: Between Flesh and Stone
“In her new book of poetry, Future Round the Curve, Patricia Barone imaginatively examines her past, her long marriage, children, travel, and always nature in its many formats – a monarch butterfly, a river turtle, “an ecstasy of bees.” These are poems written from her experience, passion, and facility with language. Her intentions are to gently instruct the future – her children, nieces and nephews – each named in the dedication – “Don’t shiver waiting for angels/ to stir the river or warm the ocean.” In the end, her simple but profound invitation to the reader resonates with the conviction and example of her own approach to poetry and life: Love your life.”
—Tim Nolan, author of Lines
“In Future Round the Curve, Patricia Barone reminds us of “how wide and deep love is.” The span of her life on this blue planet entwines with water, fire, soil, salt, air and community. These poems, like her black dog, “roll [their] fur in soil and nestle on her unmade bed.” They invite us to see ourselves on this journey she has forged with her family. Like the mighty Mississippi, time flows like an arrow, all too fast from birth to death, but her poet’s eye captures these moments again and again – sorrow and joy – more like a circle. If we listen real close, we might hear the banshee sing.”
—Kevin Patrick Sullivan, author of Unimpaired
