Loose Leaf Notes

Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife is a poetry memoir by Colleen Redman published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press (FLP), an award winning small press out of Georgetown, Kentucky.  The 32 poem collection probes the questions: ‘How much does the essence of one’s psyche weigh? Is the soul the one carry-on that we can actually take with us? In the end, what do we value and what do we leave behind?’  The poems are a life distillation that tracks the inner and outer journeys of childhood, aging, care giving and life’s inevitable losses.

Reviews:  Loss tempered by wonder, love radiating like the moon (“a bowl fired by the sun”), these poems track a life, playful yet dark, frank and funny, yet somber. Along with the “Scrabble dictionary in the backseat” and the “kaleidoscope in the glove compartment,” your suitcase is ready, keep it close by.  Jim Minick, author of Fire Is Your Water: A Novel and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family, Winner of the SIBA Book of the Year

Readers will be enriched by Colleen Redman’s poems.  As poetry editor of Artemis journal, I cite two examples we published in recent years. First, “The Collector” illustrates her favorite theme and a trademark of some of her finest poems—her attention to creative process regardless of limitations of time or other distractions. “Let me steal a few moments/ to collect an intuition/ to look an untold story in the eye.” Secondly, in “Ghost Poem,” she tackles the same theme- find a poem and bring it into the light of day. Only this time, she rummages into the past, a visit to her childhood home to find her “poet’s voice” and a “… new poem to work on…”  Indeed, Ms. Redman is a collector who will keep her reader’s pockets filled with the riches of her poetic discoveries.  Maurice Ferguson, Literary Editor Artemis Journal

The poems, rich with imagery and introspection, resonate with an original voice grounded in a range of experiences. Intelligent and compassionate, they promise to draw in readers with their layering of dream and day, of past and present, of insight and story…Realistic with tinges of the surreal … She has, paradoxically, told the untold, touching on that which resides in both dreams and in life and in the borders between…” Felicia Mitchell, creative writing teacher at Henry and Emory College whose most recent book of poems is Waltzing with Horses from Press 53

About the Author:  Colleen Redman writes and photographs for The Floyd Press newspaper and other regional publications. Her poetry has been published nationally, regionally and online and has most recently appeared in Artemis Journal, Floyd County Moonshine, The Front Porch Review and The Poet’s Haven. Her photography, poetry and prose is regularly featured on her blog, looseleafnotes.com, where her bio reads: “From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, I write to synthesize what I’m learning at the time, whether it be poetry, a political commentary, or a letter to my family in Hull, Massachusetts, where I’m originally from. Whenever I don’t know exactly what it is I’m doing and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research. ‘Dear Abby, How can I get rid of freckles?’ was my first published piece at the age of 11.”