A keen observer of the landscape of the natural world and its corollary terrain of the heart, poet Felicia Mitchell has just had her third chapbook collection of poetry published, this time by award-winning Finishing Line Press.  This small collection of poems follows “There is No Map,” published online in 2008 by Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and “Earthenware Fertility Figure,” published in 1999 as a first-prize winner of the Talent House Chapbook Competition.

Poet Marilyn Kallet says that Felicia Mitchell’s poems are “packed with wonders, like succulent fig preserves or red cherries—savor and devour them.”  Kallet comments, “Each poem is a song with hints of the folkloric and mythic laced through.  Erotic energy plumps the verbal fruits as well.  The reader feels refreshed by the poet's generous and tender attention to details of the natural world, as well as to the reader's thirst for beauty.  This is the magic world, where everything is sentient, everything breathes and sings.”

Felicia Mitchell is chair of the department and Professor of English at Emory & Henry College, where she has been employed since 1987.   Listed in Poets & Writers Directory, Virginia Commission for the Arts Directory of Writers, and Contemporary Authors, she has received fellowships and scholarships in the past from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Salzburg Seminar.  Since 2003, she has written a weekly column for The Washington County News.  For over 20 years, her poems have been published widely in literary magazines and anthologies.   In addition to her poems, she has published scholarly articles on poetry and writing and edited books, including Her Words.  Diverse Voices in Contemporary Appalachian Women’s Poetry from the University of Tennessee Press.

The cover art for Mitchell’s new book features a reproduction of a monotype by award-winning artist Charles Goolsby, department chair and Professor of Art at Emory & Henry College.

Finishing Line Press is a poetry publisher based in Georgetown, Kentucky.  In addition to the Chapbook Series, it publishes the New Women’s Voices Series and sponsors the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition.  Finishing Line Press and editor Leah Maines were featured in both the 2001 and 2002 Poet’s Markets. 

 Publication Date: May 1, 2009                         

To order online, go to http://www.finishinglinepress.com/ 

Or you may order directly from the publisher, $13, check or money order, to Finishing Line Press, PO Box 1626, Georgetown, KY 40324.