Scriptorium (Beacon Press, 2016)

A 2015 National Poetry Series selection, chosen by Tracy K. Smith

Praise for Scriptorium:

“What may likely strike you on the first read is Range’s remarkable facility with form. She moves nimbly, naturally, with comfort and acrobatic delight through the rigors of sonnets, villanelles, anagrams, cento and the like. She submits joyfully to the whims of rhyme, allowing music to exert its will upon her train of mind, and she does so with such virtuosic ease that you may not even detect it on a first read.  But what you will feel more than any of this, I am certain, is an urgent usefulness. These are poems for which form is not an end in itself.”–Tracy K. Smith, from the foreword

“Poetry is ongoing revelation, the spirit surging in new words and shapes, in fresh forms.  Yet rarely have I had such a vivid sense of this as while reading Scriptorium. This is revelatory poetry of a high order.”–Jay Parini, author of New and Collected Poems, 1975-2015

“When Range rhymes–when she fills pages with internal rhymes and half-rhymes and intricate consonance–she isn’t just filling out forms; she’s asking why we have forms, in life and in art, and how we can tell when the forms are empty . . . These are poems to be savored, and saved.”–Stephen Burt, The Yale Review

“These masterly poems are involving, interesting, and rich with musicality . . . A collection not to be missed.”–Library Journal (starred review)

“This book is going to dazzle a lot of poetry readers.”–Ray Olson, Booklist (starred review)

“Linguistically graceful and formally exquisite . . . Range’s poise shines throughout.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“If it were possible for Emily Dickinson to sing in a bluegrass band it might sound something like the poems in Scriptorium . . . There is a living density to this work, sacred and profane, archaic and now, rendered in lines that are rich with syllabic music and muscle.”–Barbara Roether, New York Journal of Books

“This is a reader’s book, a sensualist’s book, a book about steeping, curating, honing. In a world that sometimes feels increasingly formless, Range dares sonnets, villanelles, and quatrains to focus us.”–Tess Taylor, barnesandnoblereview.com

You can purchase Scriptorium from Beacon Press, from your favorite independent bookstore, from Powell’s, or from Amazon.

 

Horse and Rider (Texas Tech University Press, 2010)

Winner of the 2010 Walt McDonald Prize, chosen by Robert Fink

Praise for Horse and Rider:

“It’s distressingly hard to find new American poets best served by traditional prosody, by terza rima or by couplet rhyme. Hard, but hardly impossible. Melissa Range is one such poet, and her immersion in traditions—religious and regional, as well as metrical—has led to an exciting, disturbing, promising . . . first book.”–Stephen Burt, The Believer

You can purchase Horse and Rider from your favorite local bookshop, from Powell’s, or from Amazon.