Announcing the LAUNCH of my new and improved web site. A new and interactive look with an easy to use on-line store! You can buy my scripts, fiction, children’s plays and books, and my poetry.
Please leave a comment and let me know how you like my new look!
Best regards, Trish
PS: My web designer and consultant is: Leon Adato,AdatoSystems
Eric Jones, a reviewer on BookReview.com, just wrote a lovely piece on “Butterflies and Bullets”, my book of Poetry, Essays and Musings. Click here to read it on their site, or scroll down for a reprint.
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| Poetry Title: Butterflies & Bullets Author: Trisha Sugarek Rating:  Must Read!Publisher: Trisha Sugarek Reviewed by: Eric Jones |
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I knew Sugarek’s work in the past from her collection of short children’s plays, “Ten Minutes to Curtain”, which involve the complicated dynamics of growing up. Flannery O’Conner said that if you live through childhood then you have enough material to write forever, and Sugarek has been there and then some. Her short work for the stage has put her in the perfect position to transition from play to poetry with her new book, “Butterflies and Bullets”. Even the title denotes the strange duality between innocence and loss, and that theme is prevalent throughout the work. Mostly in free form, Sugarek keeps everything in a minimalist range, lending focus to intimate moments like a man playing his Mandolin beside a fire, or the quiet landscape of the Serengeti just before rainfall. These truncated pieces of life feel like literary snapshots. These are Sugarek’s butterfly collection. Then, of course, there are the bullets. The bullets are also set in free form, however they deal with much more happenings and are more narratively set. My favorite poem is one of these. “Hair Cut… Two Bits” chronicles the return of a barber from war-torn Europe in 1934 via a freighter into the Mississippi from the Gulf. The story, though scarcely a few pages, manages to convey the loss, struggle, and triumph of war given a single, near microscopic, experience. Not to mention that it’s all the more topical today, given the current mess in off the shore of New Orleans. There are many that are like these, managing to say a lot with only a little. And given their accompanying illustrations by Lori Smaltz, which are printed small in keeping with the book’s minimalist structure, “Butterflies and Bullets” comes off splendidly. The collection feels complete and utterly whole, no piece of the pie excluded. Such close ups reveal that every place is connected. The ocean, if you look closely enough, looks just like rain on the blistering asphalt of your driveway. Shanty Irish curtains, at a certain scale, are indistinguishable from the sculpted wood of a Native American totem pole. This is the nature of Sugarek’s poetry, that when you pull back you see how different everything is, but when you put it under the microscope, a butterfly is really just a bullet with wings. |
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Recently I took a long hard look at my own web site and realized that it was static, lifeless and tired. And I had loved it for so long! So began my journey for a web consultant that could bring me into real time with shopping cart, shipping, animation, and far better communication with my readers!
I began by asking an old friend in the computer software industry for a referral….and found Leon. What a treasure. He’s clever, funny and patient! As an added bonus he has a degree in theatre from NYU, so he really gets me. While my site isn’t completely finished, while Leon continues to build and polish it I am able to come on line and ‘play in my cyber sand box’!
The new software is friendly and easy to learn. I think it really shows off my books and scripts with beautiful illustrations (a nod to my wonderful team of illustrators) and is easy to navigate. I hope my readers and theatre family enjoy it as much as I do!
British author Ann Purser had some lovely things to say about my book of poems:
“So, some fly joyously in the sun, alighting briefly, warming the heart – and then there’s the killing bullet, taking a straight path to the heart, bent on destruction. Trish’s poems are like that.
She had me hooked from the very first with Joy Filled Canine. Dog-lovers will recognize the essence of dog (not the smell) at once. There’s the joy, living for the day. ‘brandy eyes alight` – that’s it, in three words.
And Mandolin Man, so touching in its simplicity (and dogs again).
Then The Song of Agony – the bullet straight to the heart. A short tale of desperation, and again, pared down to a distillation of pain. There’s where Trish Sugarek’s considerable talent lies. Buy it, folks!”
(You can purchase “Butterflies and Bullets” right here on my online store.
A good friend called me the other day; He’s a very accomplished pianist and musical director. He was reading my book of poetry, Butterflies and Bullets. He went on to say that while reading my work he kept hearing music in his head. And could I give him permission to use my poetry for lyrics. What a compliment! He said he was especially taken with, “Hair-cut…Two Bits”, about a down-and-out cellist, gambler and barber in New Orleans.
We artists, regardless of what we do or what we write should lift each other up whenever or wherever we can. When I review a book I make certain that my review (if bad) lists helpful and constructive criticism and never cruel.
It is my hope that my posts relating to writing helps a new writer begin their journey in writing….and helps experienced writer learn something new.
