Judy Kronenfeld

If Only There Were Stations of the Air  

by Judy Kronenfeld

ISBN: 978-1-962405-01-0

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Judy Kronenfeld’s six full-length books of poetry include Groaning and Singing (FutureCycle, 2022), Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017) and Shimmer (WordTech, 2012). Her poems have appeared in four dozen anthologies and in many journals including Cider Press Review, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, One Art, Rattle, Sheila-Na-Gig, Valparaiso Poetry Review and Verdad. Judy has also published criticism—including King Lear and the Naked Truth (Duke, 1998)—short stories, and creative nonfiction. Her third chapbook, Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements!, is forthcoming from Bamboo Dart in June, 2024, and her memoir-in-essays, Apartness, from Inlandia Books in 2024/2025.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

If Only There Were Stations of the Air is an outcry against human vulnerability and ephemerality: our occupancy of a tiny speck in a universe incomprehensibly vast (and itself not necessarily eternal), and without the comforts of Heaven or Providence; our subjection to change, chance, contagion, catastrophe, cancer, and the loneliness and isolation of remorseless age. Yet the cry comes from the heart of love: of our blithe everyday ordinary happiness in our fragile homes and towns, of the richness of experience we have built up in our minds and hearts, of the beauty and solace of the perishable natural world; and especially, love of people and animals, living and dead-and, most of all, love of our intimate human partners whom we almost weep to have for fear of inevitable loss. The poet’s voice records it all: taking quarantine comfort in the company of a bird trilling at 3 A.M.; terrified and saddened by the assault of threatening illness; calmed-when sleep doesn’t come-by other human voices in their poems; soft-talking the self with the hope of survival, of living on, able to remember and commemorate.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

This extraordinary collection of poems opens by describing the vegetable world, the burgeoning of seeds, the twining together of vines and flowers, under the scudding clouds of everyday living.  “As if there were / an instant plan / for everything natural,  / and it was perfectly / beneficent.” But in truth the world is an untamed and unpredictable garden. There are falls, and Covid, and cancer with its threat of cells gone wild. Which of our treasures, our memories, our hopes, would we choose to take with us if a wildfire were heading for our house like the Angel of Death? This poet answers: “morning moments / ordinary as grass” and “the soothing arm’s reach / between us” that is, sometimes, “all the sweetness / we can know.” — Ruth Bavetta, author of What’s Left Over and Flour, Water, Salt

What if you had a terrible illness and what if that happened during the pandemic. This collection offers a unique perspective of this very journey. Judy Kronenfeld takes us from “an incidental finding on a CT” to feeling “wrapped in ancient loneliness.” In these beautifully crafted poems, you will find sea-crushed shells, scrapbooks, baroque paintings, crossword puzzles at the breakfast table, and a smoke-blue dusk. You will find a remarkable examination of illness, loss, escape, family bonds, and mortality. Most importantly, the poems in this book will bring to you a ledge, where you are deeply aware of “the radiant, holy, priceless dream of waking.” — Connie Post, author of  Between Twilight  and Broken Metronome

Judy Kronenfeld sings of Nature’s wonderful business and sounds her unforgiving depths at the time of old age and the simultaneous menace of Covid.  Budding roses and ready sharp scalpels share a common poetic space, reminding us that the therapy of true poetry is not to distract, but to go deep into the pains of the ephemeral. —Isabel and Ricardo Nirenberg, Editors, Offcourse Literary Journal