[Siham Karami]

Thrilled to announce the publication of my first full-length poetry collection (and first poetry book, period), To Love the River, by Kelsay Books!!! It will be available on the publisher’s website TODAY, much sooner than expected. Amazon should have it by next week. So I am clicking my heels, floating mid-air, trying to find cloud 9 on my GPS, that sort of thing.

This book has been in the works for a few years; some of you may recognize poems therein, many of which were workshopped here. The debt of gratitude I owe to the Sphere is beyond description. I cannot begin to thank all of you, so many who generously gave encouragement, advice, and necessary criticism, without which this book would not exist. When I first came here, I had been so isolated I hardly knew how to address people, what terms to use, etc. To say the Sphere has been deeply transformative to both my life and my writing would be an understatement. I read some of these poems to one of my daughters last night, who understood so much of the experience and emotion that went into this, and saw how art can validate and augment a life at the same time as it concentrates something so expansive into a very small space.

The cover art (you can see on the link to the book on Kelsay Books website above) is by a Swedish mystic and pioneer in abstract art, Hilma af Klint, who is just now being discovered by the art world with her first one-woman show, decades after her death in 1944, at the Guggenheim Museum. This picture was the inspired suggestion of the inimitable and generous Mary Meriam, who has helped me in countless ways. There aren’t enough superlatives for her. And if I start naming names... so many of you have had an impact in ways you might not even know.

The book will be on Amazon a little later, and in about a month I will have copies to sign and send if interested (pm any time). I’m also looking for reviewers — if anyone can help with that in any way please pm me. Thanks again.