Caught between Coasts: Collected Poems 1989-2018

Living off the grid in small-town middle America, capturing scenes of survival and reckoning, and examining family and personal histories are recurring themes in Jan Chronister's full-length poetry collection "CAUGHT BETWEEN COASTS." The "coasts" map birth and death, brother and sister, child and parent, along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior where Chronister has lived. Poems address being a daughter, mother, and woman while inviting readers to consider honestly how these roles shape our lives. Called a "memorable collection" by Peggy Trojan, author of "Essence, Homefront: Childhood Memories of WWII" and "Free Range Kids," and endorsed as "a poetic kaleidoscope," this volume of short poems, spoken in pure language, is a multicolored story of the poet's life... Warm, honest, often humorous, solid.

About the Author :
JAN CHRONISTER has been writing poetry for over fifty years. She has been published in state, regional, and national anthologies and has won awards in three contests sponsored by Lake Superior Writers. She has also placed in contests sponsored by the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, League of Minnesota Poets, Brainerd (MN) Writers Alliance, and the Tallgrass Writers Guild (IN). Jan received the Diane Glancy Award for Poetry from Bemidji State University. Twelve of her poems were published as collaborations with printmakers by the Northern Printmakers Alliance in Duluth, Minnesota. She founded the "Thunderbird Review" in 2013 while teaching writing at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, Minnesota. Now retired, Jan continues to teach poetry workshops and plan poetry events. She currently serves as president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and lives in the woods near Maple, Wisconsin, with her husband and a geriatric cat. More about Jan Chronister and her work can be found at www.janchronisterpoetry.wordpress.com.

Review :
Caught between Coasts is a poetic kaleidoscope. This volume of short poems, spoken in pure language, is a multicolored story of the poet's life. Woven through tales of her childhood are topics varying from her extended family to living off the grid in northern Wisconsin. Warm, honest, often humorous, solid. This is a memorable collection. - Peggy Trojan, Author of Essence, Homefront: Childhood Memories of WWII and Free Range Kids, winner of the Helen Kay Chapbook Prize Dense with the landscapes of Wisconsin, Caught between Coasts pulls us through a familial history rooted in the dirt and blood of the land. Intimate with the environment and sympathetic toward the dead, Chronister meditates on loneliness and the transformative powers of nature. This collection offers an honest, unflinching look at how family histories shape us, how our own histories often begin with loss, and asks us to consider what we take from life and how we hope to leave it. - Angela Voras-Hills, Finalist for the Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry Jan Chronister's narrative poems in Caught between Coasts follow the arc of life, and they are lit by long summer days and glints of lake light in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Their music has assonance and consonance echoing the rainfall. A strong, down-to-earth woman, Chronister's poetic voice is by turns feminist and funny. With a steady and unflinching gaze, these poems recall the roads that a woman travels. Hers are marked by white crosses, stone bridges over the Amnicon River, and soaring eagles. History is told through the many women's stories: "beds made up / but never slept in / waiting for the lost" and steel hearts. In another poem, she says her "children walked on ice / ran with scissors / played with fire / spoke to me in silence." In these stories of women and of family, she makes connections between the everyday, the confounding, and the miraculous. - Sheila Packa, Author of Cloud Birds and Night Train Red Dust, Duluth Poet Laureate