"Mercy is a lie, is a lie, is a li- 
lac cutting from the neighbor's ancient bush. 
My hands are his secret." 

These lines, from the opening poem in Jeanne E. Clark's second collection, Gorrill's Orchard, hint at the book's overall enterprise, which is the fashioning of pain into something closer to release. This transformation generously includes—indeed, is made possible by—the dogs Clark has rescued and helped rehabilitate for the past several years at her home near an almond orchard in Northern California. The poems convey that the work of the orchard, its blossoming, fruiting, and harvest, mirrors the work of the poet and her several charges. 

Clark is a Midwesterner who spent several years in the Southwest before joining the creative writing faculty at CSU, Chico. Her first book, Ohio Blue Tips, won the Akron Poetry Prize in 1997. She teaches creative writing classes with an emphasis in poetry as well as literature classes. She is interested in community-based education and taught for many years in prisons, nursing homes, homeless shelters, and public schools as an Artist in Education.

Join us for this free reading and book signing at Lyon Books!