Bowlfuls of Blue

By Alexandra McIntosh

A longing for wonder and communion with the natural world can be felt throughout the pages of Alexandra McIntosh's debut poetry collection, Bowlfuls of Blue. McIntosh's work, like that of Wendell Berry, J.R. Tolkien, Mary Oliver, and Annie Dillard, shares a conviction that a writer's sense of place nurtur

• Language: English
• Publisher: Assure Press
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954573055

Alexandra McIntosh

Alexandra McIntosh lives and writes in Kentucky, her favorite place in the world. She received her B.A. from Asbury University, her M.A. in English from Northern Kentucky University, and her MFA in Poetry from Miami University. Her writing explores memory, both personal and communal, and its connection to the natural world. She is currently teaching college English and working on her next book: a memoir about family stories and the landscapes they create. Her poetry and creative nonfiction can be found in publications including Sad Girls Club, Milk and Cake Press, Raw Art Review, and Griffel Magazine. You can find links to her publications and pictures of her dog on her website AlexandraMcIntosh.com.

Book preview

Bowlfuls of Blue

Praise for Alexandra McIntosh

"Bowlfuls of Blue creates a world where woodpeckers, goldenrod in ditches, and snails oozing out of rusty shells all speak of beauty. The poems in this collection revolve around family, the natural world, and questions of faith. Alexandra McIntosh creates an earnest voice filled with wonder: I once heard a man say, God / is doing 10,000 wonderful things right now . . . We must be underestimating. Whether traveling in Spain, sleeping on a houseboat, or driving through the rolling hills of her Kentucky home, the speaker sees the world anew in ways that inform her belief: my faith isn’t concrete; / it’s wild flowers. These observant, meditative poems rooted on earth cast their gaze upward, driven by hope."

Laura Van Prooyen, author of Frances of the Wider Field

"In Alexandra McIntosh’s Bowlfuls of Blue, you will find lyric poetry alive with beauty, presence, and benedictions. Here the phenomenological is flecked with relationships, wanderings, and dailiness. Her poems capture extraordinary ordinary marvels. I tried to stay awake for the meteor shower,/ the Perseid Outburst dripping fire, searing / brackets across the sky. Deceptively plainspoken and quietly revelatory, the poems are filled with the gestures of living. McIntosh’s words invite us into the world: its wonders, mysteries, and enchantments. This is a powerful debut collection."

Hoa Nguyen, author of Violet Energy Ingots

For this speaker, the world is a wonder and a holy place. Nature is a momentary stay against confusion, a place to believe and to love, but it is also fragile and harsh. Robins pluck snails out of their shells. A child is left to blow on a feather just to keep the whole thing afloat. The speaker is as implicated in the violence as the rest of the animals with actions like leaving the cicadas writhing in piles…for the neighbor’s cat. And we are all left to ask, How can we be sure that our existence amounts/ to nothing more than survival? Yet we keep returning to beauty, to connection between people and animals, to the stars dripping from the sky, to the small things like that glorious mystery called evaporation." And the word choices, the sound, the line—the journey these poems take me