Description
Complex emotions and experiences are woven into the architecture of Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins, where the reader is both captured and freed by meditations on perseverance and survival. While fables and mythology tower over our literary landscape casting a long shadow, Anderson uses electrifying retellings in verse to illuminate new meaning in well-known tales.
Straddling the line between universal and deeply personal, this lush garden of poems has been seeded in a fairytale realm but grows beyond such boundaries into horror, fantasy, and confessional poetry. Anderson deftly prunes her concepts down to their powerful cores, revealing the truths at the root of our folklore.
In a world of princes and witches, of maidens and curses, brute force and heroic conquest can fail in the face of a gilded cage. Here, poems affirm the strength of subtlety and soft power as the untold stories of women shape the fortunes of entire kingdoms.
What They’re Saying
“…a lush literary delight. It ambles, rather than rushes, to highlight the beauty of the imagery. The topics bridge the gulf between genre and mainstream poetry, providing much for thought and variety. Natural imagery, however, is the cloak of this richly layered tapestry.…In this collection we find the folklore of Rapunzel lightly held; does she escape with the prince and their children? Is she still an inhabitant of the Tower? Or is she a metaphor, a cautionary tale?”—Denise Dumars, 2nd Place Rhysling Award winner, Pushcart and Elgin Award nominee
“Anderson wields a haunting symphony of unforgettable prose in a fairytale more honest than the hearts’ delusions. There is visceral magic in this poetic masterwork born of the deep and tragic humanity found within the prison of the lonely self.” —Jamal Hodge Bram Stoker Award® nominee, The Dark Between the Twilight
“Colleen Anderson’s beautiful voice sings stronger than ever here, sprouting curiosity at every turn, and taking your thoughts to places you’ll never predict. Lush language, inimitable imagery and a fervent approach to the fantastic sync up perfectly in this book, which captures the writer at the height of her acclaimed career in speculative poetry and which I dare say also raises the bar on mythological fantasy and nature poetry equally. Stepping into the worlds that await here is like trodding upon a soft garden of delights both divine and bedeviled. Her words conjure up a cavalcade of creatures mythic and mighty to comment slyly on our relationships with nature and each other, twisting like creeping ivy, crawling under your thoughts and gathering momentum in unpredictable ways. —Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award Winning author of Proverbs for Monsters and The Gorelets Omnibus
“In gardens and dreams we often find new myths to give us comfort, despite the darkness that surrounds us. Anderson weaves both the dark autumnal viscera of memory and hope with wild dreamscape, and the fantastic into a personal and poetic tapestry that allows readers to walk their own path through strange and beautiful gardens.” – Maxwell I. Gold, Bram Stoker Award® nominated poet, Bleeding Rainbows and Other Broken Spectrums
“Mad poetic honey in hemlock tea—sinister sweetness only hides deadly sap—fairy tales and mythology fracture and reform, showing their sharp teeth and transformations. Women alone speak the ‘Forgotten Language’ of serial imprisonment, social expectations, betrayals, learned helplessness, gestation and fertility, even once laid in the Earth.” —Pixie Bruner, Rhysling Chair 2025, author of The Body as Haunted
“…a poetic tapestry of transformation, resilience, and reclamation. Woven through lush imagery and lyrical precision, Anderson’s collection invites readers on a journey where myths merge with deeply personal landscapes. Each poem is a delicate yet powerful exploration of identity, autonomy, and the enduring strength found in embracing one’s story. A profound and mesmerizing read.” —Angela Yuriko Smith, two-time Bram Stoker Award® winner and publisher of Space and Time
“Visionary poet Colleen Anderson takes up her golden skeins to create an exquisite tableau in this latest collection of poems braiding fairy tale, fantasy, and fact. Examining the cruelty of isolation and the loneliness of dysfunction, it’s a luminous work that hums with longing, each poem, each small reveal, delivering an ache of recognition. Startling and unique, Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins is a towering collection.”—Lee Murray, Multiple Stoker winner, and award-winning author of Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud
