Slow Blooming Gratitudes

<p>A finalist in Finishing Line Press’s 2017 NEW WOMEN’S VOICES CHAPBOOK</p><p>COMPETITION Slow Blooming Gratitudes is Vermont poet Sarah W. Bartlett’s second</p><p>chapbook. Her poems invite readers into moments of transformation healing and presence.</p><p>“These are no ordinary poems of love loss letting go courage and universality” writes</p><p>Cynthia Brackett-Vincent publisher and editor of the Aurorean poetry journal. “Rather</p><p>… they are extraordinary poems ... masterfully crafted … extending the hand of welcome</p><p>to each reader.”</p><p>Ellaraine Lockie award-winning poet nonfiction author contest judge and educator says</p><p>the language of this collection “seeps into the reader like a slow soft massage” in its</p><p>capacity “to offer solace and acceptance in times of adversity.”</p><p>Sarah’s poetry and prose appear in Adanna the Aurorean Minerva Rising PoemMemoirStory</p><p>Mom Egg Review Ars Medica; and highly-acclaimed anthologies including the award-winning</p><p>Women on Poetry (McFarland & Co. Inc. 2012). Her first poetry chapbook was Into the Great</p><p>Blue: Meditations of Summer (Finishing Line Press 2011).</p><p>In 2010 she founded writing inside VT a weekly writing group inside Vermont’s sole women’s</p><p>prison to encourage personal and social change within a supportive community. Now in its</p><p>eighth year the program hosts an active blog (www.writinginsideVT.com) and continues to hold</p><p>readings and book talks based on the 2013 publication of HEAR ME SEE ME:</p><p>INCARCERATED WOMEN WRITE (Orbis Books). Sarah co-edited this anthology of writing</p><p>and art by 60 early program participants and has published a number of pieces as well as</p><p>delivered two keynote speeches about the work.</p><p>Sarah was greatly influenced by her father a world-class chemist devoted to making the world a</p><p>better place. From him she learned the value of community and a love of words at play. Sarah</p><p>spent the first 25 years of her professional life using language in service to planning marketing</p><p>and public relations for non profit organizations. Sarah’s current work as change agent and poet</p><p>draws on the full range of her experience and prior training including a doctorate in health</p><p>education from Harvard and certification as a mediator. Language remains the medium for her</p><p>life work creating communities that support individual transformation and healing through</p><p>writing as well as her own creative writing. Like the hummingbird who has taught her to see</p><p>deep into the heart of things she seeks to awaken the soul to presence.</p><p>Her reflections on both external and interior worlds draw from her life and homes in the Vermont</p><p>mountains and Massachusetts shore where she lives with her husband and pets.</p>