Category Archives: Excerpts from Book 2 “The Longing To Be” Edge Unlimited Publishing (1998)

You Are

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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You Are

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            You are simple

like death is simple,

like death is unmistakable,

containing the most feverish and trying

of mysteries within

its boundless domain.

              You are beautiful

like a cat is beautiful

silently sitting,

galactic in its sensual form,

giving with its gaze

substance to voice and blood.

              You are fire-driven

like stars and like sex,

in perpetual combustion,

with an inner pulse of endless

dance, dancing

in savage, mystical tides.

              You are gentle

like a raindrop caught

in a lucky palm, gentle

like the shelter of a best friend’s arms.

              You are more than sun and bird and fox,

more than soil to my groundless heart.

              All I bless and all I need,

I hold because of you.

              No meaning nor madness

could replace the milk and breath

that you are.

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Copyright © 1998 by Allison Grayhurst

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Review of poetry chapbook "The River is Blind"

BookCoverImage Allison GrayhurstTrial and Witness back cover final

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “Creative Talents Unleashed” website, November 2016

creative-talents-you-are creative-talents-you-are-2 creative-talents-you-are-3 creative-talents-you-are-4 creative-talents-you-are-5 creative-talents-you-are-6

https://creativetalentsunleashed.com/2016/11/24/you-are-author-allison-grayhurst/

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First published in “The Blue Hour”

The Blue Hour 1The Blue Hour 2The Blue Hour 3

http://thebluehourmagazine.com/2012/12/27/you-are-allison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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River – Songs from the poetry of Allison Grayhurst

river-songs-from-the-poetry-of-allison-grayhurst-booklet

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/river-songs-from-the-poetry-of-allison-grayhurst/id1293420648

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“Allison Grayhurst intertwines a potent spirituality throughout her work so that each poem is not simply a statement or observation, but a revelation that demands the reader’s personal involvement. Grayhurst’s poetic genius is profound and evident. Her voice is uniquely authentic, undeniable in its dignified vulnerability as it is in its significance,” Kyp Harness, singer/songwriter, author.

“Allison Grayhurst’s poems are like cathedrals witnessing and articulating in unflinching graphic detail the gritty angst and grief of life, while taking it to rare clarity, calm and comfort. Grayhurst’s work is haunting, majestic and cleansing, often leaving one breathless in the wake of its intelligence, hope, faith and love amidst the muck of life. Many of Allison Grayhurst’s poems are simply masterpieces. Grayhurst’s poetry is a lighthouse of intelligent honour… indeed, intelligence rips through her work like white water,” Taylor Jane Green, Registered Spiritual Psychotherapist and author.

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The River is Blind chapbook review:

“An existential curiosity courses through Allison Grayhurst’s latest collection. It’s Grayhurst’s physical constraints that comfort us: a box sitting at the top of the stairs, housecats in states of wakefulness and sleep, the “snails and moss” that preoccupy her. Indeed, The River Is Blind situates itself firmly in the familial but imbues those relationships and domestic touchstones with a disembodied calm. Ambition and disenchantment linger along the fences of Grayhurst’s property but she remains candidly in the present.

“In lesser hands, muses such as these might’ve resulted in verses of weak-kneed contentedness. But Grayhurst’s voice remains one of detachment, webbing daily pleasures into greater meditations on love and God. Through spiritual lens, poems like “Everything Happens” and “Flies” counteract steadfast faith with insights on the material world, a separate world; a place where people grind flowers for honey,” Ryan Pratt, Ottawa Poetry Newsletter, January 30, 2013

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Review of The Longing To Be: 

“The contents of Allison Grayhurst’s book The Longing To Be are both personal and universal and are described in such thematic and golden terms that one can see that a lot of thought has gone into each line. The poems are written mostly in free verse throughout, with both rhythm and soul weaved into them. For some poems, the layout seems experimental, and there is definitely a playfulness in the way that the words and verses fall onto the page. Others do conform to a “norm”, whatever that is. All are dramatic and thoughtful. These are layered poems with new horizons presented to the reader in every re-read. The effect is to keep things fresh with poems that constantly surprise in spite, and because of, the number of times being read. I thoroughly recommend The Longing To Be as a poetry book to study carefully and cherish far into the future,” poet Brian Shirra.

 

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Matriarch

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Matriarch

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Grandmother is reciting

a rhyme from Indian lore,

in the evening on the sofa as her

90 year old mouth loosens in the firelight,

and I am crowned with knowing

that here, beside her is a warmth

I never before could drink,

that beside her, other than strength and conviction,

is a softness that journeyed on in spite of

her husband’s death, that lives in the motions

of her caramel hands clasped on her lap

in the evening on the sofa as this Christmas day sun

shimmers its last ray of savoury gold.

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Copyright © 1998 by Allison Grayhurst

3002

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Peacock Journal” October 2016

peacock-journal-1 peacock-journal-2jpg peacokc-journal-matriach peacock-journal-3

Allison Grayhurst – Four Poems

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

 .You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

“Allison Grayhurst intertwines a potent spirituality throughout her work so that each poem is not simply a statement or observation, but a revelation that demands the reader’s personal involvement. Grayhurst’s poetic genius is profound and evident. Her voice is uniquely authentic, undeniable in its dignified vulnerability as it is in its significance,” Kyp Harness, singer/songwriter, author.

“Allison Grayhurst’s poems are like cathedrals witnessing and articulating in unflinching graphic detail the gritty angst and grief of life, while taking it to rare clarity, calm and comfort. Grayhurst’s work is haunting, majestic and cleansing, often leaving one breathless in the wake of its intelligence, hope, faith and love amidst the muck of life. Many of Allison Grayhurst’s poems are simply masterpieces. Grayhurst’s poetry is a lighthouse of intelligent honour… indeed, intelligence rips through her work like white water,” Taylor Jane Green, Registered Spiritual Psychotherapist and author.

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Review of The Longing To Be: 

“The contents of Allison Grayhurst’s book The Longing To Be are both personal and universal and are described in such thematic and golden terms that one can see that a lot of thought has gone into each line. The poems are written mostly in free verse throughout, with both rhythm and soul weaved into them. For some poems, the layout seems experimental, and there is definitely a playfulness in the way that the words and verses fall onto the page. Others do conform to a “norm”, whatever that is. All are dramatic and thoughtful. These are layered poems with new horizons presented to the reader in every re-read. The effect is to keep things fresh with poems that constantly surprise in spite, and because of, the number of times being read. I thoroughly recommend The Longing To Be as a poetry book to study carefully and cherish far into the future,” poet Brian Shirra.

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Quebec City

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Quebec City

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On plains of autumn green

where hardly bird or squirrel roam,

the dream we find by holding hands

is like a wave of sunshine

undulating on our brows.

 

On streets of winding stone, old

as Medusa’s smile, old as wounded

pride resting on an enemy’s throne,

we laugh at the struggling day – mouths

full of kisses and a hunger soothed to sleep

by so many unforced smiles.

 

Up stairs once crushed by cannon ball fire

we lift our limbs to see where the city wall

extends. We are both thinking

of the good day behind, both sniffing

the devouring scent of unforgotten history.

 

Evening drifts through our hair.

We are alone, like all babes are and lovers too

who have perfectly communed

beneath this Northern sky.

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Copyright © 1998 by Allison Grayhurst

3002

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 

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First published in “Cavalcade of Stars” March 2016

Cavalcade of star March 1 Cavalcade of star Quebec City 1 Cavalcade of star Quebec City 2 Cavalcade of star March 2

https://cavalcadeofstars.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/allison-grayhurst-2/

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You can listen to this poem by clicking below:

 

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“Allison Grayhurst intertwines a potent spirituality throughout her work so that each poem is not simply a statement or observation, but a revelation that demands the reader’s personal involvement. Grayhurst’s poetic genius is profound and evident. Her voice is uniquely authentic, undeniable in its dignified vulnerability as it is in its significance,” Kyp Harness, singer/songwriter, author.

“Allison Grayhurst’s poems are like cathedrals witnessing and articulating in unflinching graphic detail the gritty angst and grief of life, while taking it to rare clarity, calm and comfort. Grayhurst’s work is haunting, majestic and cleansing, often leaving one breathless in the wake of its intelligence, hope, faith and love amidst the muck of life. Many of Allison Grayhurst’s poems are simply masterpieces. Grayhurst’s poetry is a lighthouse of intelligent honour… indeed, intelligence rips through her work like white water,” Taylor Jane Green, Registered Spiritual Psychotherapist and author.

.

Review of The Longing To Be: 

“The contents of Allison Grayhurst’s book The Longing To Be are both personal and universal and are described in such thematic and golden terms that one can see that a lot of thought has gone into each line. The poems are written mostly in free verse throughout, with both rhythm and soul weaved into them. For some poems, the layout seems experimental, and there is definitely a playfulness in the way that the words and verses fall onto the page. Others do conform to a “norm”, whatever that is. All are dramatic and thoughtful. These are layered poems with new horizons presented to the reader in every re-read. The effect is to keep things fresh with poems that constantly surprise in spite, and because of, the number of times being read. I thoroughly recommend The Longing To Be as a poetry book to study carefully and cherish far into the future,” poet Brian Shirra.

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