Marsh River Editions

Two Off Q:

a conversation

in poetry

by

June Nirschl

and

Judy Roy

There’s just no other way to put it: I’m genuinely crazy about this book. I feel as though I’ve been allowed to eavesdrop on the perceptions and insights of two very wise and deeply talented women, and I’ve come away enlightened and richly entertained. Judy Roy and June Nirschl write tellingly and vividly of their near-rural surroundings, which include not only the lovely landscapes and lake-scapes of Door County, Wisconsin, but also of the wonders, both joyful and poignant, of their own personal journeys down the decades. Exceedingly well-matched for collaboration, both poets welcome what’s profound and often season their offerings with a generous dose of humor. Don’t miss this one.

Marilyn Taylor

Reading Two Off Q: A Conversation in Poetry is as exuberant and satisfying as being told the radiant stories of a well-loved, hand-crafted patchwork quilt. These poems by June Nirschl and Judy Roy are well-rooted in a sense of place and are brimful of the pleasures and hard beauty of life. These are witness poems, a lively and compassionate dialogue laced with tough good humor, and sprung from the intimacies of the heart. How blessed we are as readers to sit with these two poets, who have taken their rightful place among the best. This is a nourishing book of poems to return to again and again.

Ellen Kort

The work of these two poets (on alternating pages) acts as a kind of counterpoint, complementing and contrasting in a way that poems by a single person could not. The result is something quite remarkable that resonates with the reader like a Bach fugue. June Nirschl’s emotional depiction of her last meeting with her dying father is juxtaposed with Judy Roy’s picture of her mother late in life “playing Christmas carols / on a piano only she could see.” Judy remembers, “Children and Jell-O arrived together,” as June, in the “orchestra pit of the kitchen,” uses her spatula to direct the sizzle of frying eggs. These poems are like phone calls between two close friends. They are doors and windows into the worlds of Judy Roy and June Nirschl, plus an invitation for their readers to re-open the doors and windows into their own worlds. You will love this book.

John Lehman

ISBN 978-0-9772768-4-4

Published 2008

56 pages

French flap outer wraps

$10.95

Book won Outstanding Achievement in Poetry award from

the Wisconsin Library Association

Presence

by Judy Roy

You came into the room, sat down to read,

unaware that I was at the desk,

puzzling over line breaks in a poem.

I am so often in this long-shared space,

I’ve morphed into a blue-jeaned sofa cushion,

a blinking photograph upon the wall,

a standard fixture in the landscape of a marriage.

Never mind. Just yesterday I failed

to see you sitting cross-legged on the floor,

repairing electronics gone awry.

Then again we speak of politics,

or grocery lists, and children turning gray,

what might have been, and what may lie ahead,

all sorted out inside my head

while you have gone to town,

and I am knitting yet another shawl.

January Musicale

by June Nirschl

While NPR plays rousing red squirrel music

The wind whistles a gusting chorus

through the flapping wings of geese

The gray cat joins the orange one in insistent serenade

The refrigerator hums its chilling song

The microwave beep seeks a symphonic mini-role

And roosters vie for solos above the cackle of hens

I—from the orchestra pit of the kitchen—hair flying

spatula raised

dance to the sizzle of eggs in the pan

TO ORDER:

$10.95 plus $3 postage.

Send check, made out to Marsh River Editions, to:

Marsh River Editions

Linda Aschbrenner

M233 Marsh Road

Marshfield, WI 54449

Or print out our ORDER FORM (available on the Order Form page or as an Adobe PDF file) and mail it along with your payment.

Questions? Email:

wordzoo (at) dwave (dot) net

Thank you!