{"product_id":"the-pavese-stone-9781967149087","title":"The Pavese Stone","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInspired by the legacy of Cesare Pavese, Judith Vollmer's \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Pavese Stone\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e unfolds across the Italian countryside and burrows deep into the interior landscapes of memory, mortality, and connection. This is a vivid, haunting, and intimate meditation on the porous boundary between life and death, the longing for communion, the brutality of reality, and the quiet grace that resides within it. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these pages, fortitude, elegy, and quiet dignity are interwoven with a profound desire for expansion. Vollmer's poems offer a sharp attentiveness to the textures of daily life, remaining firmly grounded in the physical world even as the speaker questions the soul's place within it. This is a book of deep listening and keen observation, where even the smallest gesture--such as severing the leather cords of a tethered owl--becomes an act of radical grace. \u003cem\u003eThe Pavese Stone\u003c\/em\u003e reminds us of the power in meeting another's gaze and truly witnessing. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eNear the end, Vollmer invites the reader to embrace and celebrate the ceremony of what one might even consider an unceremonious life: \u003cem\u003e\"Here is a ring I would slide onto your finger, \/ a plain thread.\" \u003c\/em\u003eThe poems of \u003cem\u003eThe Pavese Stone \u003c\/em\u003efind their beauty in the ordinary, elevating moments of stillness and loss into sacred space.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eVollmer, Judith:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003eJudith Vollmer's seventh book of poetry, \u003cem\u003eThe Pavese Stone, \u003c\/em\u003e is forthcoming from Alice James Books in March 2026. \u003cem\u003eThe Sound Boat: New and Selected Poems, \u003c\/em\u003ewas awarded the 2022 University of Wisconsin Press Four Lakes Prize; other collections have been awarded the Brittingham, the Cleveland State, and the Center for Book Arts publication prizes. Reactor was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and featured in \u003cem\u003eThe Los Angeles Times Book Review.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Door Open to the Fire\u003c\/em\u003e received finalist honors for the Paterson Prize. Vollmer is recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; and artist residencies from the Corporation of Yaddo, the American Academy in Rome, Blue Mountain Center, and the Centrum Foundation, among others. Her poetry, reviews, and essays have been published in \u003cem\u003ePlume, Rhino, Barrow Street, The Georgia Review, The Women's Review of Books, Agni, Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, \u003c\/em\u003eand elsewhere. She is Professor Emerita of the University of Pittsburgh\/Greensburg, and recipient of the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award of the University of Pittsburgh. For three decades, Vollmer co-edited the international poetry journal\u003cem\u003e 5 AM\u003c\/em\u003e. Her essay on Baudelaire, \"The Stroll and Preparation for Departure,\" is included in the Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire (Cambridge University Press). She has read her work internationally at colleges, universities, museum and galleries, arts organizations, and community centers. Vollmer has taught in low-residency programs at New England College's MFA in Poetry, the Drew University Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation, and most recently in Carlow University's MFA Program. She lives in Pittsburgh's Nine Mile Run watershed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Alice James Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52127651627282,"sku":"9781967149087","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_b9aa6bf0-2d99-4e40-9fdf-e8ef3fdb3a5b.jpg?v=1773741307","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-pavese-stone-9781967149087","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}