Accidental Joy

<p>With the sprawling celebration of Walt Whitman and the meditative concentration of Mary Oliver <em>Accidental Joy</em> is more than a poetic monologue-it is a personal epic. It is private prayer and public performance in one. Sitting down to read it feels like you're taking in a good bottle of wine: the flavors highlights and notes are diverse and complex but they nonetheless create a unified flavor a cohesive and balanced whole.<br /> -<strong>Allyson Whipple</strong> author of <em>We're Smaller Than We Think We Are</em><br /> Judith Austin Mills is a poet who wins poetry contests some with very formal requirements but this sequence opened to me her driving force for clear beautiful expression in free verse. I found graceful lyricism eloquent description and searing social criticism all of them in a stream of philosophical insight highlighted with snorts of humor. I will be buying copies of this book to give to my friends.<br /> -<strong>Elzy Cogswell</strong> former President of the Austin Poetry Society award-winning poet <br /> Each passionate stanza is entire to itself but the whole poem sustained for 101 stanzas pours down with the power of a waterfall. You'll encounter humor jazz gratitude fresh ideas and imagery. The poet acknowledges dismay at what is inner and outer yet in another stanza finds redemption.<br /> -<strong>Mary Ellen Branan</strong> author <em>Weavings</em> 2010 Blue Light Book Award 2011 Peace Corps Award for Best Poetry Book<br /> The poems in <em>Accidental Joy</em> are meditations that take us as close to home as a human of any age ever gets. Invoking the power of memories they invite us along where light walks into nature's wonders and the wondrous workings of the human heart.<br /> -<strong>Ute Carson</strong> author<em> Just a Few Feathers Folding Washing Colt Tailing</em> and<em> In Transit</em><br /> Word windows. Mini-movies...images fresh evocative parallel equivalent. They sing to and for us. Worthy words scenes dreams. Read into them. WELCOME IN!<br /> -Thom Woodruff known as Thom-the-World Poet poet and performing artist<br /> Judith Austin Mills writes directly to the reader about the creative pursuit and its importance to the soul. <em>Accidental Joy</em> offers homage to nature while it urges us to transcend regret and frustration. The verses are psalms that inspire. <br /> -<strong>Julene T. Weaver</strong> author <em>No Father Can Save Her</em> and <em>Case Walking</em></p><p> </p>