Naked for Tea, a finalist in the Able Muse Book Award, is a uniquely uplifting and inspirational collection. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's poems are at times humorously surreal, at times touchingly real, as they explore the ways in which our own brokenness can open us to new possibilities in a beautifully imperfect world. Naked for Tea proves that poems that are disarmingly witty on the surface can have surprising depths of wisdom. This is a collection not to be missed.
PRAISE FOR NAKED FOR TEA
Most anyone can make lemonade out of lemons. However, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's welcoming voice, receptive heart, artistic mastery, and empathic vision become an alchemy of being. Out of mudslides, misunderstandings, the exploits of Wild Rose, deep loss, and chocolate cake that sinks in the center, she makes courage, care, joy, and compassion. When "what's the use" breaks down the back door, she is there, her great good soul encouraging us to sigh, laugh, renew our attention, and feel grateful for and delighted by any cake that sinks in the center.
-- Jack Ridl, author of Practicing to Walk Like a Heron and Saint Peter and the Goldfinch
Heart-thawingly honest, deliriously sexy, and compassionate down to the fingertips. A book of kindness and bewilderment and delight from one of our best poets.
-- Teddy Macker, author of This World
There is still rich ore in the Colorado San Juans. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a treasure. In an era of seeming nonstop, subject-matterless, first person mirror dancing at the Temple of Narcissus incomprehension, it is a delight to find a poet who can tell a crackling story laced with gorgeous imagery and euphony that will appeal to the ancient seats of learning: the heart, belly, and brain. These are poems Sappho and Horace would love: they delight and instruct. They can be read and sung, and they will echo from the proverbial Colorado mountaintops through the archetypal red rock canyons of your mind. Prepare thyself to be smitten and to fall in love.
-- David Lee, Utah State Poet Laureate emeritus, author of Last Call and A Legacy of Shadows
Reading Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is to float upon a never-ending waterfall of wonder . . . Pay attention. The elegance of her simplicity will blind you to her mastery. Then, she will let you fall, head over heels, in Love. With everything.
-- Wayne Muller (from the foreword), author of Sabbath and Legacy of the Heart
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives in southwest Colorado and is the author of eleven collections of poetry. Her poems have appeared in O Magazine, Rattle.com, TEDx, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion, and on river rocks she leaves around town. She's taught poetry for Think 360, Craig Hospital, Ah Haa School for the Arts, Weehawken Creative Arts, Camp Coca-Cola, meditation retreats, twelve-step recovery programs, hospice, and many other organizations. She's won the Fischer Prize, Rattle's Ekphrastic Challenge, the Dwell Press Solstice Prize, the Writer's Studio Literary Contest, and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. As Colorado's Western Slope Poet Laureate (2015-2017), she created and curates Heard of Poets, an interactive poetry map. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison. Since 2006, she's written a poem a day. One-word mantra: Adjust.
Naked for Tea was a finalist for the 2017 Able Muse Book Award.