Books
Forthcoming:
Dear John-- The Poetry Box (11/15/2021)
About this book
I met John through tech in the early 90s and we quickly became friends. John was in military intelligence in the Army, in the advisory team to the 5th ARVN recon from 1969-1970 in Viet Nam. Through the years we began writing actual letters to each other. In one of those letters he said that he never had a good letter that began with Dear John… . That was my prompt to create the title poem, which eventually lead to the theme for the book.
Dear John-- is a collection of poems that investigate explore the multi-facets of love by using diverse points of view to reveal romantic love, loving friendships, and love that is complicated. The namesake poem for which this book was conceived, the final poem, “Dear John—,” is an epistolary poem in multiple stanzas ultimately on which the theme of this book is derived “what happens between the notes // is the living.”
Dear John-- is a collection of poems that investigate explore the multi-facets of love by using diverse points of view to reveal romantic love, loving friendships, and love that is complicated. The namesake poem for which this book was conceived, the final poem, “Dear John—,” is an epistolary poem in multiple stanzas ultimately on which the theme of this book is derived “what happens between the notes // is the living.”
Blurbs:
Laura LeHew’s work addresses the sublimation of the human emotions and the trouble remembering them. The evocative language along with the monosyllabic words bring to life a collage of grief, desire, loss, sexuality and repression. Line after line a new secret is revealed, just like peeling an onion down to the core revealing the enigma of how a human negotiates with the natural world, and how men and women define their conduct within, between them and society. I am mesmerized and surprised by the use of “personified punctuation” which become integral parts of the poem as well as the mystery of the black-out word. Laura’s poetry is stunning, clear and melodic. It makes me understand better women’s emotions.
Raúl Sánchez, Author of “All Our Brown-Skinned Angels”
2019-2021 City of Redmond Poet Laureate
2019-2021 City of Redmond Poet Laureate
In Laura LeHew’s new collection, she tackles the living one does between the letters. Essentially, love in its numerous forms. Friendship to romantic love to complicated love in poems such as “First Love” and “If Divorce is the Zombie Apocalypse.” Dear John explores connection between people, nature and thought. Offers both hushed human moments and passionate insight. This book will surprise you every time with what it means to love. As a veteran, who deployed to Iraq. I know what its like to place hope in a letter. Not knowing what awaits me on the other side. Laura addresses the unknowing with remarkable honesty, courage, and wisdom.
~Kristine Iredale: poet, veteran, kick-ass baker.
Laura in Dear John pulls at her scabs with grace, wit and poetic honesty. Yes, it is intensely personal and revelatory as it explores the complexities of romance and love which most will identify and empathize with. You’ll find yourself deeply moved and inspired by its bold honesty. Keep this one close by because it is worth reading several times.
~Christopher J. Jarmick; writer, poet and owner of the independent bookstore, BookTree in Kirkland, Wa
Let Widows Be Widows Unsolicited Press (3/15/2022)
About this book
Let Widows Be Widows is an elegiac collection of poetry. Using diverse points of view, Widows illuminates our various states of loss, hope, love and mourning we experience with death. This book is not a lament but rather an exploration on how we overcome grief.
Blurbs:
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This work could easily have been titled Duende Moon, a phrase from a poem late in the collection, as LeHew is not petitioning a beloved muse but wrestling with the duende, which only appears when there’s the possibility of death. Here it’s not just a possibility, it’s best friends, former romantic rivals, soldiers, former enemies, birds and cats (especially cats) all headed for the hereafter. While Lorca knew nothing can ever bring consolation, these fierce poems reflect a life as an ongoing elegy, capturing moments with a true poet’s rare and authentic pathos.
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The poems of Let Widows Be Widows take us to the tenuous threshold between life and absence. In myriad ways, LeHew delivers the difficult news of the dissolution of relationships, of illness, suicide, terminal diagnoses, deaths both graceful and brutal: all so compassionately witnessed, they become in her poetic hands a litany, a meditation, a rant, a prayer. LeHew’s remarkable range of forms—from cento and sestina to haibun and sonnet—makes each poem an intricately crafted vessel, “radiant in the twilight,” holding us “at the border between the worlds.”
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Paul E Nelson,
Founder of SPLAB and author of A Time Before Slaughter/ Pig War: & Other SOngs of Cascadia |
Terry Ehret, author of Lucky Break and Night Sky Journey
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“Salvage what you can. / Throw away what you cannot.” In Laura LeHew’s dark yet often humorous poems, nature, grief, and the body’s vulnerabilities connect in a world of cascading losses. A tumor is named “Frederick,” teen-agers get high on bath salts, and an owl brings news from the spirit world. Steeped in the reality of what it means to be human, these clear and vibrant poems take us on a dizzying trip through airports, hospitals, and even to the United States’ Capitol. LeHew looks directly at life’s many contradictions, refusing to turn away from distress, absurdity or loss.
Erica Goss, author of Night Court
Currently in Print:
Buyer's Remorse
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Tiger's Eye Press (2018)
from Tiger's Eye Infinity series: Infinities are small chapbooks, just eight-poems long. A succinct bite of poetry. 8 small poems on abuse (from dictionary.com) verb (used with object), a·bused, a·bus·ing. ... to treat in a harmful, injurious, or offensive way ... order from Tiger's Eye & I, of course, have some copies to sell you on Uttered Chaos' site or in person cover by Duane Kirby Jensen |
Becoming
Another New Calligraphy (2016)
The last poem of this collection asserts that “…the past is the answer not/ worth pursuing.” But the startling and moving poems that precede it prove otherwise. In Becoming, Laura LeHew has pursued the past, delving into a family history replete with the catastrophic effects of alcoholism. Using innovative forms and vivid imagery, LeHew’s work poignantly evokes the devastation created by an alcoholic sister, mother, and father. These poems tell a powerful story—one both provocative and wrenching.
—Paulann Petersen
Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita
Rather than portraying family as the mythological unicorn we wish it to be, Becoming is the poetic equivalent of an antithetical Brady Bunch. Full of fracture, dementia, multi-generational substance abuse, and violence, Laura LeHew’s poems wrench family damage from shadows and whispers directly onto center stage. A poem in the voice of sister “Karen,” relates: “Once he fuckin’ broke the door down/pulled the phone off the wall/while I was callin’ the cops./Remember?//Like dad did that one time when he was so pissed at you?” Heartbreak, rather than sentimentality, is woven into the tightly crafted fabric of the verse, as well as the organization of the collection, with found journal-entry poems, non-sequential ordering, and this solemn profound couplet from penultimate poem “Mother’s Day”: “& the past is the answer not/worth pursuing.” As dark as the reality of Becoming is, the journey is redeemed by unflinching examination, moments of unwavering generosity, and the faithful testimony of survival.
—Lana Hechtman Ayers, author of The Dead Boy Sings in Heaven
Through finely crafted formal innovations and an unflinching focus on the realities of alcoholism, dementia, and the precarious pathways of family histories, Laura LeHew reminds us that poetry is one of the surest ways to fully inhabit our lives while grappling with realities that unsettle the mind and soul.
—CE Rosenow, author of Pacific and Spectral Forms
This book is hand made, limited edition and numbered. Order it here: Another New Calligraphy and I have some copies for sale.
The last poem of this collection asserts that “…the past is the answer not/ worth pursuing.” But the startling and moving poems that precede it prove otherwise. In Becoming, Laura LeHew has pursued the past, delving into a family history replete with the catastrophic effects of alcoholism. Using innovative forms and vivid imagery, LeHew’s work poignantly evokes the devastation created by an alcoholic sister, mother, and father. These poems tell a powerful story—one both provocative and wrenching.
—Paulann Petersen
Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita
Rather than portraying family as the mythological unicorn we wish it to be, Becoming is the poetic equivalent of an antithetical Brady Bunch. Full of fracture, dementia, multi-generational substance abuse, and violence, Laura LeHew’s poems wrench family damage from shadows and whispers directly onto center stage. A poem in the voice of sister “Karen,” relates: “Once he fuckin’ broke the door down/pulled the phone off the wall/while I was callin’ the cops./Remember?//Like dad did that one time when he was so pissed at you?” Heartbreak, rather than sentimentality, is woven into the tightly crafted fabric of the verse, as well as the organization of the collection, with found journal-entry poems, non-sequential ordering, and this solemn profound couplet from penultimate poem “Mother’s Day”: “& the past is the answer not/worth pursuing.” As dark as the reality of Becoming is, the journey is redeemed by unflinching examination, moments of unwavering generosity, and the faithful testimony of survival.
—Lana Hechtman Ayers, author of The Dead Boy Sings in Heaven
Through finely crafted formal innovations and an unflinching focus on the realities of alcoholism, dementia, and the precarious pathways of family histories, Laura LeHew reminds us that poetry is one of the surest ways to fully inhabit our lives while grappling with realities that unsettle the mind and soul.
—CE Rosenow, author of Pacific and Spectral Forms
This book is hand made, limited edition and numbered. Order it here: Another New Calligraphy and I have some copies for sale.
Reviews:
Please read a review of Becoming on Whisper Thunder by Dr. Dawn Karima.
Purchase a copy:
Order Becoming in the Uttered Chaos on-line store - by Other Publishers
Willlingly Would I Burn
Moonpath Press (2013)
“Albert Einstein once said pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. The elegant poems in Willingly Would I Burn possess such purity, such poetic expressions of logical ideas. These poems blend math and science, presenting poems as word problems for the complicated mes we live in. The grace and strength of Laura LeHew's voice vibrate from every single page."
—Roxane Gay, Co-Editor, PANK
In this exciting new collection, Laura LeHew gives us poems of the most adventurous kind. Re-purposing the skeletal language and visual constructs of science and math, of computers and banking and even of standardized testing—utilizing, as well, both conventional and invented poetic forms—LeHew's philosophical algorithms are at once both personal and universal: poems of witness and social awareness, of love and loss, of happiness and its limits, of family dysfunction, health care, and a wide range of social ills that stem from the “arrogant discourse” of those in charge. Willingly Will I Burn expands my horizons and gives me heart.
—Ingrid Wendt, author of Evensong
In Willingly Will I Burn, Laura LeHew reveals the emotion and humor that threads through the details of everyday life. She achieves this partly through her brave honesty, and partly by inserting poetry into forms that no one else has ever attempted, from math word problems to org charts to airplane reservation emails to retirement account statements. In Laura LeHew's world, poetry appears foremost in the most surprising places.
—Zack Rogow, author of My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers
Nominated for the Oregon Book Award 2014.
“Albert Einstein once said pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. The elegant poems in Willingly Would I Burn possess such purity, such poetic expressions of logical ideas. These poems blend math and science, presenting poems as word problems for the complicated mes we live in. The grace and strength of Laura LeHew's voice vibrate from every single page."
—Roxane Gay, Co-Editor, PANK
In this exciting new collection, Laura LeHew gives us poems of the most adventurous kind. Re-purposing the skeletal language and visual constructs of science and math, of computers and banking and even of standardized testing—utilizing, as well, both conventional and invented poetic forms—LeHew's philosophical algorithms are at once both personal and universal: poems of witness and social awareness, of love and loss, of happiness and its limits, of family dysfunction, health care, and a wide range of social ills that stem from the “arrogant discourse” of those in charge. Willingly Will I Burn expands my horizons and gives me heart.
—Ingrid Wendt, author of Evensong
In Willingly Will I Burn, Laura LeHew reveals the emotion and humor that threads through the details of everyday life. She achieves this partly through her brave honesty, and partly by inserting poetry into forms that no one else has ever attempted, from math word problems to org charts to airplane reservation emails to retirement account statements. In Laura LeHew's world, poetry appears foremost in the most surprising places.
—Zack Rogow, author of My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers
Nominated for the Oregon Book Award 2014.
Purchase a copy:
- Order Willingly Would I Burn in the Uttered Chaos on-line store - by Other Publishers
- Order it on Amazon by clicking here.
It's Always Night, It Always Rains
WinterHawk Press (2012)
In the anthology Ashes Caught on the Edge of Light: Ten Chapbooks.
BP (Before Poetry) there was my murder mystery novel. Returning to my first love, this is my chapbook of murder/noir poems.
In the anthology Ashes Caught on the Edge of Light: Ten Chapbooks.
BP (Before Poetry) there was my murder mystery novel. Returning to my first love, this is my chapbook of murder/noir poems.
Purchase a copy:
Order It's Always Night, It Always Rains in the Uttered Chaos on-line store - by Other Publishers
Beauty
Purchase a copy:
From here on down is in progress and has not been updated for a longish while - please bear with me while I update the sections below.
Prizes
in progress ...
Recordings
- Pictures of Poets began as a portrait project inspired by the larger than life works by American artist, Chuck Close. ... The intended experience is to stand in front of a poet and, with headphones in/on, cue up the audio, transporting the words, formed by the poets own breath, directly into your ears.
- KMUZ: Talking about Art with Laura LeHew and Anita Sullivan (3/10/17)
- Laura LeHew - Lane Community Writers Series - November 3, 2016
- Nicole Taylor and Laura LeHew share Nicole's poetry at the February 28, 2016 Lane Writers Reading Series (LWRS) reading.
- Oregon Poetic Voices - 3 poems
- The Poetry Stage 2015 - 01e Sun. - Laura LeHew
- Laura LeHew - Lane Writers Reading Series - December 28, 2014
- Laura LeHew - CCA MFA in Writing 10th Anniversary Reading
Click HERE for a complete list of Publications.