Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press Poetry Prize) [Paperback]

Kelli Russell Agodon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2010 | Series: White Pine Press Poetry Prize (Book 15)

"Agodon's book is a bright, funny, touching meditation on loss, love, and the power of words. Her genius is in the interweaving of God and Vodka, bees and bras, astronomy and astrology, quotes from Einstein and Dickinson, a world in which gossip rags in checkout lines and Neruda hum in the writer's mind with equal intensity."—Jeannine Hall Gailey

"These are poems of remarkable liveliness. Here is a fresh, distinctive voice that is consistently engaging and surprising."—Carl Dennis

Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of Small Knots and Geography and lives in a seaside community in the Pacific Northwest.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kelli Russell Agodon: Kelli Russell Agodon was born and raised in Seattle and educated at the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writers Workshop where she received her MFA in creative writing. She is the author of Small Knots (2004) and Geography, winner of the 2003 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.
Her work has been appeared in literary magazines and anthologies such as the Atlantic Monthly, Prairie Schooner, Notre Dame Review, North American Review, Image, 5 a.m, Meridian, Crab Orchard Review, Calyx, The Seattle Review, Poets Against the War edited by Sam Hamill, as well as on NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac” with Garrison Keillor and in Keillor's second anthology, Good Poems for Hard Times (Viking Press).

Kelli is a recipient of three Washington State Artist Trust GAP grants, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Dorothy Rosenberg Poetry Prize, the William Stafford Award, the Carlin Aden Award for formal verse, a Soapstone Writer's Residency, and a grant from the Puffin Foundation for her work towards peace and as a poetry editor for the broadside series: The Making of Peace.

Currently, Kelli lives in a seaside community in the Northwest with her family. She is the co-editor of Seattle’s literary journal, Crab Creek Review. Visit her website at: www.agodon.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: White Pine Press (October 19, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935210157
• ISBN-13: 978-1935210153
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,064,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kelli Russell Agodon's second collection Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room (winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize) was chosen by ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year in Poetry and was a Finalist in the Washington State Book of the Year Awards.

Kelli was born and raised in Seattle and educated at the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop where she received her MFA in creative writing.

She is also the author of Small Knots (2004) and Geography, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Currently, Kelli lives in the Northwest with her family. She is the editor of the literary journal, Crab Creek Review and the co-founder of Two Sylvias Press. Visit her webpage at: www.agodon.com or stay in touch with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound and Playful: A Book for Every Woman's Bookshelf, November 3, 2010

By 

Susan Rich "Susan" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press Poetry Prize) (Paperback)

Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room is as playful as it is profound. Kelli Agodon does an artful job of balancing hard-won wisdom and wistfulness throughout her prize-winning collection. The moon returns again and again as do dead poets and very alive lovers. There are too many stellar poems to choose just one or two favorites, but "Questions at Heaven's Gate" is one of the ones I wish I'd written with it's mirrored stanzas of when my father meets God, and the concurrent, when God meets my father. But what I value most in this necessary collection is the poet's movement from Neruda to Oprah, from the Hubble Telescope to baklava. I finish Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room and turn the book over to begin another elegant journey through its pages again. This is a book you'll not only want on your bookshelf, but it's also one to be given to those that you love - be they writer, barista, woman or man.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Page Turner!, December 11, 2010

By 

Brenda Miller (Bellingham, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press Poetry Prize) (Paperback)

Rarely do I consider a book of poems a "page turner," but I couldn't put down Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room. I kept wanting to see where this poet would go next, though I really wanted to slow down and savor each poem. I laughed out loud, then grew quiet, then laughed again; here is a poet who can be funny and tragic at the same time. She's been a marvelous companion to me as I dive into my own writing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Letters to the World, November 15, 2010

By 

redsoxpoet - See all my reviews

This review is from: Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press Poetry Prize) (Paperback)

I fell in love with the speaker of the poems in Kelli Russell Agodon's wonderful collection, Letters From The Emily Dickinson Room. The voice throughout this intelligent book is witty, compassionate, wry, observant and engaging. Agodon's beautifully structured poems address what it means to age, experience loss, entertain doubt, and search for meaning. I especially enjoyed the poems that use humor and heart to explore a relationship with God.

Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room is a poetry book you can recommend to a wide range of readers. There is so much to enjoy here.