Gathering the Pieces of Day

<p class=ql-align-justify><strong><em>Gathering the Pieces of Days</em></strong> is a luminous mosaic a handwoven tapestry of images sights sounds tastes smells and emotions a mandala of memories marking the passage of time as our earth makes her way around the sun...This book of poetry is at once alchemy for the troubled soul and medicine-as our indigenous ancestors meant that word-for our cruel and angry times. The year 2018 was full of turbulence and trouble and yet what a glowing passage around the sun it became in Pickrell's gifted hands. Despite the terrible news that shadows our days we can learn from LeeAnn Pickrell the art of living in our sensual bodies in our deep emotions in a way that honors what we find beautiful meaningful and profound. May Pickrell's muse Carpe Diem inspire us her readers to create our own rituals of gathering the precious pieces of our days.</p><p class=ql-align-right><strong>Naomi Ruth Lowinsky (2025) Carpe Diem Jung Journal</strong></p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify><em>Gathering the Pieces of Days</em> is a collection of 52 poems-one for each week of the year-born from a daily ritual begun by LeeAnn Pickrell in 2018. Committing to a page each morning about the previous day she captured life's details in real-time later condensing each week into a page of reflections. The following year Pickrell transformed these 52 weeks of thoughts into poetry blending free verse prose poetry contrapuntals and list poems. This book emerged as a year of life expressed through poetry-messy frustrating joyful and bittersweet.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In these poems no subject is too small or too grand. Pickrell reminds us to savor everything: the morning coffee a baseball game the warmth of a loved one beside us a cat curled at the foot of the bed dreaded work and cherished moments with friends. Her poems span mundane moments and profound emotions inviting us to notice each fleeting day. <em>Gathering the Pieces of Days</em> celebrates the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary from laughter and love to loss and longing and the dreams that carry us forward.</p>