Talking Me Off the Roof

Why do we need poetry in dark times? The answer can be found in Laurie Kuntz's marvelous-as in full of marvels-new chapbook, Talking Me Off the Roof.

This is a fiercely courageous poet who refuses to blind herself to life's afflictions and tumble into despair, but instead invites the reader to look closer, to see the miraculous in the ordinary. In these impeccably observed and elegantly rendered poems, the familiar world shines with numinosity. Each poem reflects a compassionate and wise apprehension of lived experience, providing darkness a home in language, housing it among the mundane-sparrows, possums, sunsets, noisy children-the way prayer, too,

ensouls our earthly existence.

If attention is love, Laurie Kuntz has written love poems of the highest order.

-Dale M. Kushner, author of M and The Conditions of Love

"Quotidian moments will save us," such is the premise of Laurie Kuntz's last poem of her new chapbook, Talking Me off the Roof, written by a mother, wife, teacher, observer of the world. These rhapsodies, words, thoughts, ideas, resonate based on singular and often quotidian moments, and a plenitude of flowers, to delight and inspire.

-M¿ng-Lan, poet, writer, artist

Laurie Kuntz's newest collection Talking Me Off the Roof is a map for our times and the chapbook book I wish we'd all had during quarantine. In each poem, Kuntz's language flows with the intricacy and lightness of a feather and just as magnificently designed. She finds "the marrow of gratitude" in nature and guides the questions around the longevity of love. This book holds us through uncertainty and settles us into grounding wisdom like "aren't we all miracles at one time or another." This lush exploration of beauty doesn't shy from pain and in doing so plumbs the miracles we often overlook and brings them like a bouquet to the reader.

-Jeri Frederickson, author of You Are Not Lost and editor of Awakened Voices