I am delighted to announce that Fly on the Wall will be publishing the sensitive and heart-warming collection, 'the sea refuses no river'
by Bethany Rivers. Bethany has that ability as a writer, to be both specific, individual and yet universal, so that the images she paints are for her readers to share. The collection will be published in June 2019.
Bethany Rivers sheds some light on her collection...
Grief is a secret journey that flows through your life like an invisible stream. Nobody sees it. Though occasionally, someone close to you may hear it.
As William Stafford says, there is a thread you always follow, but what that thread is for you can mean diffferent things at different times. Perhaps it's hope, perhaps it's love, perhaps it's poetry.
This collection pulls together various threads of a daughter's journey, after her father has died. It is at once personal and universal. How childhood grief for my dad has followed me, transmuted, become part of my life-song.
As Rumi (13th century Sufi poet) invites the reader to do, we need to learn to embrace all the parts of ourselves, to be whole. Some days that's easier than others. Some days it feels impossible.
But as Cavafy rightly points out, it's the journey, not the destination that's the thing. Hard as that may be, we keep trying to follow the thread.
This collection explores that thread, that life-song, how, no matter what happens along the journey, the world keeps on turning.
Bethany Rivers joins Elisabeth Horan and Anne Walsh Donnelly in the 2019 chapbook line up for Fly on the Wall. I have a feeling it will be a very special year!