When All Is After by Peter Barton.

“I seem to be stories now,” reflects the narrator of Peter Barton’s  When All Is After, but the poems refuse tidy narratives and easy explanations. Here is a narrator that can observe a beloved after decades of marriage, his adult children, or experiences from his own past with eyes that are as open and attentive as in a first encounter. While this may be a debut poetry collection, the candor and complexity Barton brings to his representations of daily life build upon a long, accomplished practice in filmmaking and photography. What’s striking about Barton’s gaze is that even when he trains it on some of the book’s darker subject matters, such as mortality, regret, and addiction, his commitment to honesty is not brutal but deeply tender.”

–Allyson Paty, Author of Five O’clock on The Shore and co-founder and editor of Singing Saw Press

Gail Thomas has published six books, most recently Leaving Paradise. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Among her awards are the A.V Christie award from Seven Kitchens Press for Trail of Roots, the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back, and the Quartet Journal’s Editor’s Choice Prize. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches poetry with Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops, visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog, and works with immigrant and refugee communities in Western Massachusetts. http://www.gailthomaspoet.com