Foreword by Richard Wilbur
(Judge of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, 2007)

88 pp,  ISBN: 978-1904130-33-8, £7.99 (paperback only),  
Publication, November 1st 2008

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A note about Bundle o' Tinder From an acerbic poem on the subject of poetry competitions to a touching meditation on what might once have been a Neanderthal's flute, from a light-hearted meditation on the origins of ticklishness to a measured account of her reaction on first hearing about 9/11, Rose Kelleher's Bundle o' Tinder is a debut collection of unusual thematic diversity. It is also a collection of unusual formal resourcefulness, written by a poet immersed in tradition but not in thrall to it.t he judge’s foreword

A note on Rose Kelleher Rose Kelleher was born in 1964, grew up in Massachusetts and earned her B.A. in English at UMass Boston. She has worked as a technical writer and programmer, and authored four computer books and numerous technical articles. Since rediscovering poetry in recent years, she has published poems and essays in a variety of magazines – including Anon, Atlanta Review, the Dark Horse, First Things, iota, Measure, the Shit Creek Review, Snakeskin and Verse Daily – and been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. She lives with her husband in Gaithersburg, Maryland. For more information, please visit her website at http://www.ramblingrose.com/

Praise for Bundle o' Tinder "Rose Kelleher’s poems are everywhere the work of a sharp intelligence, a good heart, and a great technical gift ... Bundle o’ Tinder is a thoughtful book ... of wide reference and observation. It is very unlike the claustrally personal work of which one sees too much at present; at the same time, it is strongly personal, in the sense that its tone and vision are distinctive and recognizable. This is that rare thing, a first book in which the poet’s voice has been fully found.” – Richard Wilbur (from the judge's foreword) “Rose Kelleher has an assured voice and mastery of technique, but hers is not cozy, complacent poetry. It is non-conformist. Living, and organic, it grapples with reality in unpredictable and often uncomfortable ways.” – Paul Stevens, Editor, The Shit Creek Review “This collection presents a naturally gifted writer who has taken care and pleasure in becoming consummate in craft. Everywhere there is the striking content, the surprising development and the deft phrase-making that distinguishes a poet not just of power and skill, but of grace.” – Mike Stocks, Editor, Anonted alike.

From Bundle o' Tinder Lovesick Don’t look away, you gave me this disease. A carrier, you passed it unawares. My every cell is altered now; each bears your stamp, a mutant, every drop of me adulterated. If I could, I’d squeeze the stinging poison out. It’s in my hair, my fingernails, each microscopic pair of spiral strands, corrupting by degrees. Geneticists who study me on slides could piece you back together. My remains will carry traces, in these scalded veins, of your warm hand; in my triglycerides, and in the deepest etchings of my brain, they’ll find the you my body memorized.       Zeitoun Zeitoun, Cairo, 1968 What if you were, as I suspect, a hologram, a Coptic tourist trap, a scam the mortal eye could not detect? What if photons, fiddled with, beguiled the eye, glittering in the Cairo sky, a brilliant flimflam veiled in myth? What if the world, wanting a mother, embraced a ruse, thousands of Muslims, Christians, Jews, fooled into seeing the light together? And what if the only light to see is in the faces of foolish crowds in sacred places? Our Lady of Light, enlighten me. ©