Ann Dixon: The Brilliant Beyond
…In spare, vivid poems rooted in the natural world—snowfall, ravens, forests, sea wind—Ann
Dixon chronicles the years surrounding her husband’s final illness and death, and the life that
follows. Clear-eyed and compassionate, these poems embody both the devastation of widowhood
and the stubborn persistence of love. The collection is a deep meditation on absence, resilience,
and the mysterious ways our dead remain present. The Brilliant Beyond enacts grief ’s long
arc—and honors the courage required to keep living within it.
—Erin Coughlin Hollowell, author of Corvus and Crater
Hindsight
Rocks cobbled the beach
in an endless run, unremarkable
to untrained eyes.
Streaks of red, jumbled
grays, glitter-flecks hidden
within specks of black
told tales you read
while I listened.
I was satisfied, then
with patterns of beauty.
I was satisfied, then
with time. The future
lay far off, a cloudbanked
shore.
I barely noticed the rattle
of stones shattering
against a pulling tide.
Born and raised in Washington state, Ann Dixon attended the University of Washington and
lived in Oregon while working as a tree planter and timber cruiser. She moved to Willow,
Alaska, where she and her husband built a home, raised their two daughters, and shoveled untold
amounts of snow. There she began her dual careers as a librarian and a writer. Ann’s poetry has
been published in such places as Alaska Magazine; Ice-Floe: International Poetry of the Far
North; Cirque; and the anthology Crosscurrents North, and elsewhere. She’s also written eight
books for children and one nonfiction title for young adults, as well as poems, essays, and
nonfiction for adults. Now retired, she lives in Homer, Alaska, where she helps operate an all-
volunteer bookmobile and always brakes for moose.
Visit Ann’s page at MoonPathPress.com
Purchase Ann’s collection from your favorite retailer:
Laura Urban Perry: False Horizons
In False Horizons, Laura Urban Perry uses language as a telescope and a microscope to explain
her journey that “Even God dares not try”—through grief after her son dies. She juxtaposes
words such as asymmetry, hypothesis, and machinery with stray, cradle, and “music and
wrapping paper.” This is a hauntingly beautiful telling from “yesterday’s sweet ordinary” to the
“kintsugi repair of / gold in the fracture.”
—Susan Landgraf, author of Out of a Land of Alkali & Chrome
Donor, Anonymous
We cannot dress you in the shirt
to match your sapphire eyes
Must leave you breathing as the nurse draws
a milky green drape around your bed
The next morning a phone call informs us
the harvest was successful
An Igloo Playmate delivers your gifts
There is rejoicing miles from here
They give you a new name
Laura Urban Perry is a poet, artist, and award-winning graphic designer. Her poems have been
published in the Amsterdam Quarterly, Consilience, Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington
State Birds, and by the Northwest Museum of Art. Never far from woods or water, she grew up
in New York, California, and London, England. When she moved to complete her studies in the
Pacific Northwest, she found home. Her fascination with art, science, and language fueled her
career in publication and digital design. Now she devotes her time to poetry, photography, and
close observation of the artful miracles of nature and the sea. She lives in Seattle and sometimes
in an off-grid cabin she built with her husband and kids on an island with no roads.
Visit Laura online at her website https://www.lauraurbanperry.com/
Visit Laura’s page at MoonPathPress.com
Purchase Laura’s collection from your favorite retailer:
Mary Salisbury: Call the Stars by Name
Call the Stars by Name is a powerfully moving exploration of bereavement that bypasses the
usual platitudes of suffering to offer insights into the deeper psychology of loss.…Set within a
beautiful world of apples and birds, the work nonetheless vibrates with the ache of mourning
while subtly gathering the tools for resilience and recovery. Always accessible, but never
predictable, this book maps the slow, courageous reclamation of a world that has been forever
changed.
—Brian Evans-Jones, former Hampshire Poet Laureate, UK
We Made Music
I like to think music was made to show love,
a man or a woman, rhythm of hand to knee,
animal skin and bone, sound born of bodies.
My husband used to woo me,
drumming his middle finger over
the shallow well of his bellybutton.
Impossible to say when the first flute was blown,
the first slit drum carved,
Pan with his pipes, Mercury’s tortoise shell lyre.
Noise to drown out the wild call
of cougar and bear,
sound for sound to calm fear.
There was no time before music.
Always the sound of rain and wind,
of ocean, hum of river, waterfall.
You made the echoing tune,
and pulled me in.
Mary Salisbury’s poetry has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, North Dakota Quarterly
, and other journals. She recently received Honorable Mention in the 2025 Grayson
Books Poetry Contest. Mary is the author of the previous chapbooks Come What May and
Scarlet Rain Boots, both published by Finishing Line Press. Salisbury’s fiction has been
published in Whitefish Review and Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts. Her story collection,
Side Effects of Wanting, was published by Main Street Rag. An Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship
recipient, Mary earned her MFA in writing from Pacific University. She lives in Beaverton,
Oregon.
Visit Mary’s page at MoonPathPress.com
Purchase Mary’s collection from your favorite retailer:
