Otherwise Obedient

Published: October 2008!! The book is out, and available from Red Hen Press. "Again and again reading Carol Potter's poems I think, yes, this is just how it is---this tricky, tender, funny human existence. With spare, strikingly precise language, sharp insight, and laugh-out-loud humor, this is a wonderful collection that had me reading aloud to my students, family, friends." ---Ellen Bass "With their unembellished surfaces, these poems excavate post-modern experience with a spare eloquence. Quotidian moments crack open, as in "Translation Problems," when the speaker observes, "I was riding/in the wrong coach./I was sitting backwards/in a foreign tongue." Loss, "that hole in the world through which/what might go does go and keeps on going" occasions many poems; for ballast, speakers employ a comic timing ("Party Girl Bites Guest," for example) that razors pieties. Potter's concluding sequence of poems with God as the main character will delight. "Grass is Always Greener" opens with "There's always something we're missing./God likes us like that. Dissatisfied." Read this book for it's satisfying mix of wisdom and of wit." ---Robin Becker, author of Domain of Perfect Affection

Short History of Pets

Short History of Pets Winner of the 1999 CSU Poetry Center Prize and the Balcones Award. "Short History of Pets is a knock-out punch from the get-go. With captivating power, it reminds us that what claims or appears to be short may also be profound, deep, and enduring. Also, how many histories are hidden, and for how many difficult reasons. Carol Potter writes with a magnetically potent instinct for pacing, and a stunning originality of style. Her poems pull us into scenes, images, ragged relationships, complicated worlds of adults---you'll come out voting for children and animals, as well as re-examining every troubled saga you encounter with a more vivid eye and sense of smell. READ THIS BOOK: It's as important and indelible as that." ---Naomi Shihab Nye Published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2000.

Upside Down in the Dark

Upside Down In The Dark "Potter....seeks no high ground, no safety or rainbows end, but allows the self to be likewise given and withdrawn, with poignancy and without fear. That desire pales in these poems before the irresistable 'what is,' in all it's variety and instability, is what intrigues me most about Upside Down in the Dark." --- Linda McCarriston "These poems by Carol Potter, about being a woman, a mother, a lesbian, are remarkably pure and full of energy. Written with love, they seem to imply that, yes, there is pain, but what a miracle there is for its setting. These poems are a rare meeting of craft and spontaneity, as if the poet were standing by the flume of a spillway and shaping the flow with her hands." ---Doug Anderson Published by Alice James Books, 1995 See favorite links for ordering information---- http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/upside_dark

Before We Were Born

Before We Were Born ...Carol Potter's concern is human mystery. Giving equal weight to inner and outer landscapes, she evokes a woman's memories, dreams, and sensual experience. The poems in this original first collection are intimate, lyrical, quizzical, surreal. My favorite among them have the vulnerability and eroticism of skin." ---Joan Larkin "I admire the power of Carol Potter's dry, dreamy, country voice, its joyful sexuality, its insights, its understated humor. This is an odd and shrewd and most valuable book." ---Jean Valentine Published by Alice James Books, 1990.