Book launch Wednesday for "InnerSessions"

Several readers have contacted me to point out an omission from Sunday's May Poetry Page events calendar.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday (May 7th), Talking Leaves Books at 3158 Main St. will host a reading and book signing event to celebrate the release of "InnerSessions," a new collection of individual and shared poems by Linda Drajem, Barbara Faust and Kathleen Shoemaker.

All three are Western New York-based poets who have written individually and together for over a decade, notably as members of the local writing group Women of the Crooked Circle (WOCC) led by Jimmie Margaret Gilliam.  Drajem and Faust are longtime Buffalo educators who've been frequent contributors to the Buffalo News Poetry Page over the years. Shoemaker, a Spokane, Wash., native, moved here in the 1990s after raising a family and working in the art business.

"InnerSessions" is described as a collaborative book project in which the voices of the three writers meld and diverge as they illuminate family themes, explore the stages of life and take up issues in the wider world. The book opens with a section of poems on Women and Writing that features the voices of the three poets alternately building and commenting on one another, before moving to separate sections for each poet.

--R.D. Pohl