The poems in this collections explore the healing powers of art and nature in a world that is as ripe with beauty as it is rife with grief.

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“Lana Hechtman Ayers’ Overtures is capacious and lyrical, a compendium of poems that showcase her imagination and her empathy, her attention to the small miracles of daily life, the passage of time, the natural world, as well as to the disorientation bred of our disconnection from the real, the ancient, the sacred. It includes fables and fairytales and homages to other poets, from Pablo Neruda to Wallace Stevens to Mary Oliver. As a collection, it is ample and generous; the poet tells the story of her life, which could be yours, by way of what she insistently, almost obsessively, observes and records. And while you ‘can’t erase / what has already happened,’ she reminds us, in poems like these, at least, ‘Your life flows back to you.’”

—Cecilia Woloch, author of Tsigan

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“These poems have arisen like miracles of what the book calls ‘today’s grace’—something elusive in life, but indelible in poems. This is a book co-authored… by the sea, varieties of shore light opening and winking into shadow as the sky changes. The book can be a guide and companion for every life where emotions flood and ebb, where clarity and peace may reside in words, even when the heart falters.”

—Kim Stafford, author of Singer Come From Afar

Open-hearted and unwavering, these poems of vivid imagery navigate the reader through a lifetime—a rocky childhood, self-discoveries as a young woman, the many losses of adulthood, then finally learning to anchor one’s existence to beauty. Poems that give voice to connection with nature, with the arts, with creativity, and with loving relationships provide uplifting insights. Ultimately, When All Else Fails celebrates the restorative power of poetry itsel.

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“Lana Hechtman Ayers’ unflinchingly honest and sensual poetry traces her journey from a difficult childhood in Queens spent in ‘the dark house of my mother’s anger’ where the poet grew ‘scrupulous as an owl’, to a wildly luxuriant maturity in the Pacific Northwest where she revels in intimacy with sky and water, trees, birds, and a loving partner. The shadows of New York give way to a wide open spaciousness and a vibrant appreciation of simple gifts: eggs from the Farmer’s Market, the sound of rain, a beloved dog, and the window in the poet’s study where ‘One windy day I became a kite.’ Ayers generously takes us along on her journey from violence and decay to a hard-earned rebirth into nature, love, and art. In the end, we too are redeemed.”

—Alison Luterman, author of In the Time of the Great Fires

The Dead Boy Sings In Heaven is a collection of poems about the grief of family—of living with and losing family members. These are poems that tell an unvarnished truth about loss, but the overall perspective is one of love, forgiveness, and redemption.

Read poems from The Dead Boy Sings In Heaven on Escape Into Life

Lana Hechtman Ayers’ sharp, vivid poems in Red Riding Hood's Real Life allow a modern Red Riding Hood, an artistic wolf, and characters like Baba Yaga to spring to life. A meditation on the choices a woman makes in her life, in her relationships, and in her art, this book maps the journey through the trials, wonders, and frustrations of a love affair.
—Jeannine Hall Gailey, author of Field Guide to the End of the World.

Not since Edward Dorn’s Gunslinger have I found a poetic persona with this range, depth, insight and humor. Lana Hechtman Ayers’ Red Riding Hood's Real Life reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s songs: while they are often narrative, or conversational, they never lose their essential relationship with melody. These very human poems are built of angelic music, and ask serious questions of the world.
—James Bertolino, author of Ravenous Bliss

Celebrated poet Lana Hechtman Ayers reveals the true-life story of Red Riding Hood, recounting with tenderness—and a new erotic candor—both the anguish and hidden pleasures of straying from the well-worn path. Epic in scope but delivered with striking intimacy, the poems move us from the innocence of girlhood through the pulchritude of adolescence, the mendacities of marriage, and the transgression of infidelity. With whom will Red tango in the dark of the woods: the Huntsman or the Wolf? The answer is transcendent.
—Jeff Gomez, CEO Starlight Runner Entertainment

Red Riding Hood's Real Life was featured in an article about contemporary novels in verse on The Mary Sue.

Four Quarters: An Homage To T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets is a dialogue and dance with Eliot's classic poem series. Preserving Eliot's distinctive stanza structures and syntax throughout, Ayers creates an utterly unique poem sequence that simultaneously celebrates the master poet, while taking him to task over his pessimistic stance on humanity.

Nominated for the National Book Award

Praise for Dance From Within My Bones

“A book of stunning poems…Warm and witty, revelatory and mysterious, it's a book of charm and talent—readable and rereadable page after page.”
—F. D. Reeve

"…an achingly honest book. These poems are vibrant, bold, courageous, open-hearted and direct.”
—Irene Willis

Winner of D-N Publishing National Manuscript Award

Praise for Chicken Farmer I Still Love You

“Lana Hechtman Ayers challenges her readers on many levels, starting with the command to 'dare your heart into words.' This poet finds texts everywhere, from graffiti on a granite boulder to a diner’s menu. Ayers’ book, Chicken Farmer I Still Love You, is honest and fearless and offers us delicious servings of an ignored America.”
—Rane Arroyo

“Some poems in this notable new collection by Lana Hechtman Ayers engage their smart-alecky, fast-talking characters with energy and spirit, taking on the Hollywood myths, from Bogart to Bugs Bunny, by which Americans live their lives. In this hard-edged ethos, the poet realizes, we may root for the charming, heartless, take-all winners, until we discover that we may be among the vast legion of losers. Some poems here are forays into pure craft—a 'Sestina' that expansively glosses Elizabeth Bishop's of the same name and employs some of the same end words. Like life itself, the comic and serious unfolding of Chicken Farmer I Still Love You reflects a delightfully spirited work.”
—Carolyne Wright

What Big Teeth by Lana Hechtman Ayers is an insightful review of woman’s place in the world. While it presents us with a humorous approach to many of the problems faced by modern woman, the book is a serious look at what many women are subject to put up with. The humor may appear to be lighthearted but the meanings of the poems can be devastating. This book claims for modern woman in the persona of Red Riding Hood her rightful place and stature in society. A worthwhile book for the contemporary poetry lover.
—Ottone M. Riccio, Author of The Intimate Art of Writing Poetry and Unlocking the Poem

Praise for Love Is A Weed

“I can think only of a very few poets who are able to bring life on a page with a sensibility that is both explosive and insightful, erotic and, yes, laugh-out-loud funny, in the way Lana Hechtman Ayers’s poems are in Love is a Weed.”
—Ilya Kaminsky

“Love in these sensuous poems is both heady and difficult. What I love most: the humor, the passion, the seriousness beneath—and the glow of the poet's incandescent heart.”
—Patricia Fargnoli

A limited edition, numbered, hand-typset broadside from Dwell Press.

Winner of the 2012 Summer Solstice contest.

Edited by Damian Ward Hey and Rick Christiansen

They are our friends often even closer than the two-legged variety. These friends are loyal to a fault. They are our companions on any and every adventure in life. Anyone who has ever said it's just a dog, or a cat, or a turtle, or a hermit crab has never experienced the kind of love and loyalty these animals provide. They help us navigate the days of youth and age, ours, and theirs.

They come to us with their own personalities and when they cross that Rainbow Bridge, they leave an “after-image burned into our hearts” (Lana Hechtman Ayers) that outlasts their time with us and changes us forever.

This beautiful anthology is a stunning tribute to some of the most beloved friends and confidantes we’ve ever had. It helps us share the ache of their losses, the tears, and the spaces they leave behind, while celebrating their lives, providing a balm to our souls, and helps us find the words we long to say on their behalf. A treasured gift for yourself, or for someone you know missing that lost, but not forgotten piece of their hearts.
—Martina Green McGowan, author of i am the rage

Edited by Lorraine Healy

Coffee Poems contains 167 richly-roasted, verbally aromatic poems by poets from 34 states, 5 provinces, and 12 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, France, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Spain, and the United States.Included among the 139 poets who give voice to these poems are Ellen Bass, Margo Berdeshevsky, Joel Brouwer, Barbara Crooker, Kwame Dawes, Stephen Dobyns, Martín Espada, Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Alicia Ostriker, Francesca Pellegrino, Alberto Álvaro Ríos, Care Santos, Vivian Shipley, Michael Waters, and Cecilia Woloch. Whether central to the poem or sitting on a side table, a mere accessory; whether a prop in an internal conversation with a you absent these 25 years or a desperately needed substance without which there is no facing the day, a cup of coffee inhabits each of these poems...Breathe in the scent and may it keep you awake.

Edited by Patricia Fargnoli

Ice cream, ice cream, who wants ice cream? Hundreds of poets not only said a resounding "yes," but wrote about it. And from those hundreds, I accepted the 125 poems you will find here from 27 different states plus Australia, France, Iraq, Spain, and Tunisia. The poems are as various as the flavors of ice cream: long poems, short poems, and in addition to traditional free-verse narratives and lyrics: experimental poems, poems in forms such as sestinas, sapphics, sonnets, prose poems. When I accepted the job of editing, I wondered if I'd be bored by so many poems about ice cream; I wondered whether there would be hundreds of poems about The Good Humor Man or Dairy Queen. But I needn't have worried, I was never bored. The Good Humor Man and Dairy Queen poems were there, of course, but I was amazed by the wide variety of subjects: light humorous poems, sweet poems, lusty poems, dark poems, poems about childhood memories, a poem about Obama's first date, and a poem with Paul Newman in it. I am pleased with this final collection of ice cream poems. I think readers will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed reading and selecting them.
—Patricia Fargnoli, author of Hallowed

Edited by Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy

Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry is the first electronic collection (now in a print version) of poems by women writing today. Poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, Co-Editors of Crab Creek Review and Co-Founders of Two Sylvias Press, have collaborated on this ground-breaking literary project. Featuring over 70 of the most extraordinary poets from a variety of backgrounds and whose ages span from thirteen to ninety-one, Fire On Her Tongue showcases superbly crafted poems exploring the contemporary woman’s experience.

Edited by Nancy Pagh

Write Moves is an invitation for the student to understand and experience creative writing in the larger frame of humanities education. The practical instruction offered comes in the form of “moves” or tactics for the apprentice writer to try. But the title also speaks to a core value of this project: that creative writing exists to move us. The book focuses on concise, human-voiced instruction in poetry, the short story, and the short creative nonfiction essay.