Dream Prints: Poems by Loretta Anawalt and Landscapes by Robert Helm

From domestic commonplaces Loretta Bonnier Anawalt has invented a surreal evocation in prose and verse poems, presented as a pattern of dreams "printed" on the mind as one might observe images emerging in a photographer's darkroom. The cohesive intelligence is that of the mature woman, observant, reflective, speculative, larger-than-life, in a world that affords ample matter for her voracious imagination.

Anawalt's sequence of poems is accompanied by a series of paintings by the eminent artist Robert Helm. With his own original surrealism, Helm's works counterpoint the poetry by their distanced repose, and the Jungian resonances which require quite a different kind of response to those we bring to the Freudian passions of the printed page. Yet they have much in common with Anawalt's poetry, in the ways they play upon our expectations with juxtaposed and disjunctive images, and refuse to yield to trite or superficial perusal. Here, art and literature intertwine to provide great evocative power, mystery, and timeless intellectual pleasures.

Loretta Anawalt

Loretta Anawalt is a Northwest writer whose short stories, mythic fiction and poetry have appeared in many Northwest and Midwest journals and anthologies. Her song lyrics were used in the Merchant/Ivory film, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, and reissued in the film's RCA soundtrack.

Robert Helm

Robert Helm is an award-winning artist whose works have appeared in galleries as far flung as Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and Berlin.

Reviews

It's not very often that we run into a piece of writing that knocks us over. Lots of fine work, yes, but not much that makes us shake our heads and wonder, Now, where did that come from? When people read Hemingway's first stories, I imagine them having felt like this. It wasn't only that the work was fine; it was so distinct.

I feel this way about these little pieces by Loretta Anawalt. They strike me as fine and distinct, and derivative of nothing except the strangeness and delight and pain of what it is to be human.

—Terry Davis, author of Vision Quest

Loretta Anawalt's poems are like recollections of our own dreams, as are Robert Helm's paintings. Dream Prints is a gift—reminding us that what we have, and what we've made of it, is mysterious, luminous, specific, continuous, invaluable, and entirely ours. One of a kind. And that we stand always with one foot in the air, stepping out as one desire generates the next, dream by dream.

—William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky

Loretta Anawalt's Dream Prints presents a fresh, extraordinary voice. The integrity of this collection makes it essential to read, in this period when most poetry publications seem to be irrelevant and unnecessary.

—Alex Kuo, author of Chinese Opera

Ordering Information

To purchase Dream Prints by Loretta Anawalt, please contact our distributor, University Press of New England toll free at 1-800-421-1561 or by fax at 1-603-448-9729. The book is also available online at UPNE, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other fine retailers.

To request a copy for review, please contact the Carnegie Mellon University Press Editorial Offices at (412) 268-2861 or by email at CarnegieMellonUniversityPress@gmail.com.