Words for Coffee

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Pure-hearted mournful playful serious-these poems run the gamut as both testament and elegy to a great woman gone.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-Kevin Rabas 2017-2019 Poet Laureate of Kansas and author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Improvise</em></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In the measured understated lines of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Words for Coffee</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Tyler Robert Sheldon conjures the intimate quiet secure space of his grandmother's home. The speaker's beloved grandmother is cozy and known but not simple: a radical therapist with a clear-headed bravery she shares Rothkos and ancient oaks with the speaker folding her strength into him. Later as the poems delve into the heartache of memory loss and elder care the speaker and his family 'pile sandbags against the coming flood' imbued as they are with life from her gentle empathetic presence. </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Words for Coffee</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> channels the specific grief of a love that threatens perfection: the growing collective awareness that it will someday end.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-Dorsey Craft author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A Brief History of Accidental Inventions</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Plunder</em></p><p></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Words for Coffee</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)> is more than just an exploration of grief but a lighthouse for anyone who has lost a loved one. Tyler Robert Sheldon is a brilliant describer of moments of care connection and loss. This poetry collection offers safe harbor. </span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>-Maurice Carlos Ruffin author of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>The American Daughters</em></p><p></p>