Crossing Over

"No two people deal with loss in exactly the same way, which is one reason why Priscilla Long's Crossing Over: Poems is so remarkable. . . . In writing out her grief over her sister's suicide, her emotions universally resonate with the reader. Through interlocking themes and images, she articulates what it means to come to terms with the past in order to move forward into the future."--The Hooch

"Priscilla Long curates the places of her heart--shows them to us and leaves them safe. . . . She upturns language from patriotic statements, and joins the ranks of Mary Oliver and Louise Glück as celebrators of local nature."--The Seattle Star

"Long presents a collection of poems that explores deeper aspects of Pacific Northwest, interlacing elegies, including for her deceased sister, with our dreamy landscapes. She uses bridges as metaphors to evoke the world around us."--The Seattle Times

"Memory is a bridge, poet Priscilla Long reminds us in this shimmering, elegantly structured collection: these poems lead back to the bright sources of longing and grief, guided by Long's excellent and playful ear, passion for language, and spine-tingling insights. Crossing Over interlaces elegies--including a gorgeous series for a lost sister--with remembered love, human tragedy, dreamy sensation, moody northwestern landscapes, and bridges--real and metaphorical. The joy of creation leavens every poem. I have long anticipated this book: it was so worth the wait."--Kathleen Flenniken, author of Plume: Poems

"Priscilla Long would take a bridge anywhere to reach her lost sister, and these poems are replete with bridges literal and metaphoric. In her quest and resolve, these words resonate from 'Kaddish for Susanne': 'All praise to all that is.'"--Carole Simmons Oles, author of A Selected History of Her Heart: Poems

"The sounds of Priscilla Long's poems take their place in creation, so lush the vowels, so euphonious her rhymes, so full her catalogues, so keen her grief and boldness, so brave her confrontation of love and loss and death and the solace of crow and bone and language. This book begs to be read out loud, sings for its supper, and offers us comfort as a gift."--Hilda Raz, Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Editor

"This is a poet obsessed with bridges and crossings, as the title of the collection implies: chaos to order; grief to acceptance; solitude to connection; confusion to understanding; life to death; past to present; dark to light--themes as old as poetry."--Samuel Green, author of All That Might Be Done