"I want to see your valiance
thick as a hind leg leaping.
Crown yourself with pale hooks,
the verdant kindnesses
of uncomplicated love, in these
lush gestures stand unfailingly,
on all fours, and know yourself—
a prize in any season. "
-from "Love, in Season"
"Amanda Williams’ poems transport and they bear -- rangy, strong, text/ured, and open-hearted. Her vision is as generous as her voice and modes. We encounter fairy tales, family, a rural upbringing, Bavarian heritage, rituals, and the disruptions/eruptions of moving out and becoming an adult. Little Human Relics marks an auspicious beginning."
- Thorpe Moeckel, author of Watershed Days: Adventures (A Little Thorny & Familiar) in the Home Range, Arcadia Road: A Trilogy, Odd Botany, Making a Map of the River, and Venison.
Photo by Beth Thompson.
Amanda Williams holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University where she was the recipient of a Jackson Fellowship and a Teaching Fellowship. She is the recipient of the Gertrude Claytor Prize in Poetry from the Academy of American Poets, and her poetry has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poems have been published on Poets.org, in Flock, The Sycamore Review, Sugar House Review, Silver Birch Press, and The New Territory, among others. Her essays have appeared in AAAA Magazine and The Morning News, and she sits on the Board of Directors for Ruminate magazine. She is currently the Assistant Director of Development, Annual Fund & Parent Programs at Whitfield School in St. Louis where she lives with her husband. Little Human Relics is her first book.