The Book Bag – Oxidized Pennies by Regine Ebner

Welcome back to The Book Bag. I hope you’ve had a poetic couple of weeks.

The past fortnight has been busy: I went to London, Kew, and Richmond to celebrate Mrs S’s birthday, sent off a couple of submissions, spent a day shadowing my new team at work, enjoyed a few delicious meals out, spent some time stargazing, and had some great walks with the dog.

On top of that, I’ve been reading;

Oxidized Pennies

  • Author: Regine Ebner
  • Press: Alien Buddha Press

Regine Ebner is an incredibly talented poet. Her contributions to Top Tweet Tuesday on Twitter/X are always thought-provoking and rich with language and imagery. Although Regine hails from the States, she travelled thousands of miles to attend the Black Bough Poetry Fundraiser in 2024. If you get the chance to hear her read, take it!

Oxidized Pennies was published in 2022 and is a pamphlet of poems that takes readers across desert land and sea with clever imagery and emotion.

The opening piece, ‘Knapsack’, is a great way to start a pamphlet. The romance and the vivid imagery will raise a smile, setting a tone for readers. 

Regine is economical in her poetry, every word has importance and there is no stray language. ‘Watercraft’  and ‘Frozen’ are excellent representations of this.

You can feel Regine’s graciousness and respect for her desert home through the wonderful use of first-person narration in ‘Blowing Sand’. 

The poem ‘Cello Pieces’ is layered with scale, both musically and cosmically. This is smartly crafted and a poem I really enjoyed. 

Grab this pamphlet if you’re a fan of exquisite imagery, the romance of prairies and appreciate economy of language.

Favorite Poem:
I’ll give you three; Feast, Sea Glass & Frozen.

You can buy Oxidized Pennies here; https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxidized-Pennies-Regine-Ebner/dp/B0B6XNQJ2W

One More Thing… 

Regine has a collection coming out soon with Black Bough Poetry.

And Finally…

I’m celebrating my birthday on Tuesday. I’d love some recommendations on collections and pamphlets I should be including in The Book Bag.  Leave a comment below or tag me on X, Threads or Bluesky.

Next Week’s Read

Looking ahead, here’s what’s next in The Book Bag

  • Title: Heritage Aesthetics 
  • Author: Anthony Anaxagorou

Take it easy and stay poetic,

Paul

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