Free Verse
Marsh River Editions

Catch and Release
Chasing Saturday Night
in search of "Green Dolphin Street"
Lines on Lake Winnebago
Loose Change
Mead
Saying Grace
Slightly Off Q
Something Near the Dance Floor
Waiting For Beethoven
Walnut from Waterloo

"Waiting for Beethoven" by Laurel Yourke

When you're longing for the rain
that feeds the flowers, greens the grass,
the sound of distant thunder
makes you tilt your head to sniff the air.
Trees shiver. The air glows electric--
your heartbeat quickens
to match the wildness of the wind.
The interlude expands, expansive as a sigh.
You barely dare to breathe.
And yet.

In the stillness preceding rain you experience
the pause between the movements of sonatas.
This moment stretches, swells, elongates into
a silence heavy with sound--
the long instant
before the soft splash,
and then the thunder

Exquisite poetry gives us a way to walk around the world, to negotiate what it is that is layered in the heart. Laurel Yourke gives us brave poems that pin us to the ground, stories that are broken and beautiful. There is a delicate balance here and she dares us to face our own humility and humanity, to define our own way to be "in" this life. She takes us into "the rooms of poetry," offers us "better than sex cake," "Gretel's magic," her "mother's respirator" and "her father's letters." With vivid images and startling clarity, these poems become a voice for all of us. Waiting for Beethoven is well worth the wait.

-Ellen Kort
Wisconsin State Poet Laureate 2000 - 2004

There's so much laughter and love in these poems! Laurel Yourke moves poetry down off that dusty shelf and smack into our busy lives. Whether she is writing about fairy tales ("Gretel's Magic") or recipes ("Better Than Sex Cake") her poems are real and honest, believable and extraordinary all at the same time. Each of them written with the clear eye for the telling detail that turns a mirror on us all.

-Jesse Lee Kercheval
Director, Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, UW-Madison
author of Dog Angel and World as Dictionary

Laurel Yourke knows how to reach the human soul and spirit. Her sharp though caring observations of people are evident in every line of Waiting for Beethoven. From the universal to what can only happen to one, her work resonates with humor, joy, sorrow, and, of course, truth. From the adolescent angst conveyed in "The yellow school bus" to the irony in "Astrology for Your Characters" to the intersection of past and present in "Lenox Avenue," Laurel Yourke's work invigorates and assures. It is life-giving and life-affirming--something we all need.

-Leslie Levine
author of Wish It, Dream It, Do It

Laurel Yourke's poems are a symphony of longing for something deeper and more meaningful than what we experience in our daily working lives.  She recognizes the hunger for the sensual and celebrates the desire to bare oneself to the creative muse, to explode with music.

-Laurel Mills
author of I Sing Back