The Fool in the Corn: Memoir-in-Poems

Happy Equinox…I am so elated to share one of the harvests of my lifetime: The Fool in the Corn, my memoir-in-poems, forthcoming on Winter Equinox this year. This book has been at least 30 years in the making, and this quiet, sweet blog has given me a sheltered space in which to share for years.

Poems in The Fool in the Corn explore the ways disillusionment with a commune experience in my formative years lead to a rich relationship with tarot, nature, poetry, dreams, and the imagination and helped me face the challenges I’d encounter post-commune in love, graduate school, marriage, motherhood, and withstanding losing my mother to cancer. Here are links to a few interviews in which I talk about the backdrop of this book:

 

Daily Inspiration: Meet Tania Pryputniewicz *(commune background)

Meet Tania Pryputniewicz: Poet, Tarot Muse, Teacher *(creative process)

 

I created the cover art for this book--woman nested inside the corn, corn-silk antennae above her head--using colored pencils. So many various joys went into inspiring the image, including the deep work of creating personal tarot card art to honor ancestors in my tarot ancestry classes I teach at Antioch University. While working through the Suit of Disks, I happened to also be reading the stunning book, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and soaking in her image of each kernel of corn with its own umbilical silk thread reaching for the sun. 

Though The Fool in the Corn walks through some challenging territory, it also reaches for the nourishment to be found in the sunfield of my life. I didn't initially know I'd be placing the face of the woman inside the corn, but as I drew, my eyes came to rest on a beautiful stained glass mermaid hanging in my house (gift of a dear friend). The mermaid's face appears in profile, and I realized I could place a face inside the heart of the corn, in profile, and it just felt right. Coming off some long months of revising the poems, I had a lot of initial resistance to creating the cover. But once I sat down to draw, with the encouragement of my much-loved team at Saddle Road Press, the rest unfolded, and here it is. I hope you enjoy the cover! I'd love to know if you feel it resonates once you read the poems.

 

You can pre-order The Fool in the Corn pretty much anywhere, your favorite bookstore, and all the usual outlets (Bookshop, Amazon, Indiebound, Powells) but only Barnes and Noble so far has the actual cover up: barnesandnoble.com.

 

I am deeply grateful to Ruth Thompson and Don Mitchell of Saddle Road Press for believing in my work. We are grateful for any support you give the small press; to that end, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads or anywhere you wish to leave one would be much appreciated. I do have Advance Review Copies (a few hard copies and of course, unlimited PDF ARCs); please reach out using the contact form on this blog or on any of my social media channels if you would like to help us get the word out ahead of publication on December 21, 2022. 

You can join me in conversation on IG @heartscompasstarot where I am posting my gratitude to the editors of the magazines in which poems were published singly over the years; they are the backbone of the collection for me, the editors and venues that helped me believe in my work along the way.