Molly Fisk’s new book, The More Difficult Beauty was released yesterday. Somewhere in the Sierra there was a great stirring and release party, I suspect.

See my short review in Sacramento News & Review, or read the full review below.

The More Difficult Beauty

by Molly Fisk

Publication Date: March 10, 2010

Pages: 96

Trim size: 5.5″ x 8.5″, soft cover

Price: $15.00

ISBN 10: 9780917658365

ISBN 13: 978-0-917658-36-5

Hip Pocket Press, 5 Del Mar Court, Orinda, California 94563

Reading Molly Fisk’s The More Difficult Beauty gave me the odd sensation of falling down a well, but instead of into darkness, I fell into light. Fisk’s words give us darkness and shadow, but these poems twist this into a kind of release, leaving the reader with a bittersweet, sobering hope. John Updike considers Fisk’s current poetic offering a “Fearless, clear-eyed work.”

This poet braves the more difficult places and reveals the world’s simple truths. —Dorianne Laux

This 96-page collection is organized in eight sections. Each section is titled with decisive, unambiguous words like “Sugar” “Light” and “Fire.” This organization by tone gives the effect of micro collections within a connected, tightly themed work.

Lovely reflective poems, like Stinson, Sunset, are about place as much as the emotion associated with them. Other poems read like heart-stories responding to incest, womanhood, sex and the process of loving.

With The More Difficult Beauty, Fisk takes us deeper into the fabric of life, to the unseen waft and weave, sometimes harsh to the hand yet rich with contrasts to feast the eye.

“…a brave and generous book.”

—Ellen Bass

About Molly Fisk

Molly Fisk has received fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Marin Arts Council. She’s won the Dogwood Prize, the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize in Poetry, the Billee Murray Denny Prize, and the National Writer’s Union Prize.

She’s the author of Listening to Winter, Terrain (with Dan Bellm and Forrest Hamer), and the letterpress chapbook Salt Water Poems. CD of radio commentary collections Using Your Turn Signal Promotes World Peace and Blow-Drying a Chicken: Observations from a Working Poet. Fisk teaches online classes through her websites www.poetrybootcamp.com and www.voiceofyourown.com . Find these and other independent artists’ CDs at www.cdbaby.com.