Glenna Luschei
Perfectbound paperback, ISBN:  978-0-9831251-2-9, 104 pgs., $15.95

Currently Out of Print

In her 24th collection of poems, Glenna Luschei achieves the perceptual immediacy promised in her critically-acclaimed previous work.  Luschei’s poems somehow keep their feet in two worlds at once.  They are constructed of equal parts of both impressionism and expressionism.  In poems such as Chocolate Labrador and the title poem Leaving It All Behind, the poet’s maturity of vision shines through with great clarity.  Her special ability is to synthesize the external and internal worlds, to reconcile them with life experiences which we all share.  This universality finds its poetic form in her strikingly authoritative and sensitive use of language, both spare and luscious.  This collection testifies that a poet may continue to hone her craft well into her seventies.  Leaving It All Behind is her best collection to date, the crowning achievement of a long life spent seeking and serving the Muses.

“Luschei empties her voice onto the page and lets the reader hear verses steeped in a message which declines an invitation.  We meet the poems head on without frills or foolish rambling.  The dance of words is infectious and the poet’s personal freedom opens each page.”
-Irene Koronas, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

“Ms. Luschei is a distiller: her poems are boiled down to the very essence of life – and even when she’s sad, there’s an irrepressible enthusiasm and sense of wonder in love with natures, history, and the sheer plentitude of existence.”            – Phil Wagner, Iconoclast

“Along with the gorgeous symbolism that forges into the realm of metaphysical poetry, note also that the speaker is not passive here when facing down death.  In this sense, Luschei’s juxtaposition of poems in which she travels, dreams, and, ultimately lives, serve as a reminder that life, for the living, does not stop and should not stop even when it has been flooded with grief.  Given Luschei’s sharp, precise, and pointed verse, she is undoubtedly an important voice in contemporary English poetry – and, I think, one who has not received the full recognition she deserves.”                                                                                                    -JoSelle Vanderhooft, The Pedestal Magazine