“Until Now: New Poems” by Carrie Newcomer

Cover Artwork & Design by Hugh Syme

Until Now: New Poems

by Carrie Newcomer

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to work with many talented authors.  It’s been both a privilege and a pleasure to be in the author/editor dance with them. Naturally, there are some dances – whether because of the author, the text, or both – that stand out from the others.  Working with Carrie Newcomer on her book, Until Now: New Poems, was one of these.

Carrie’s poems echo many of the feelings and struggles that people face these days. Through her poems, she honestly reflects on the very real challenges in our world – but also give us clarity and hope. In their complexity, her poems contain the edges, questions, and velvety tones of her songs. For Carrie is also a successful songwriter and recording artist with 20 nationally released albums. She has also been awarded an Emmy for her PBS Special An Evening with Carrie Newcomer.  

The bluesy warmth of her voice and the support of musicians who give these confessions an edgy propulsion. Rapturously tuneful, Newcomer’s material asks all the right questions and refuses to settle for easy answers. — The Rolling Stone Magazine

Newcomer isn’t preachy or self focused. She is a poet of reality, facing the soaring joy as well as the hard truths of powerful love. Newcomer has a gorgeous voice, used with intelligence and grace. An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. — Wayne Robbins, Billboard

I had a difficult time choosing between her poems for this post, I tagged many of them before I narrowed them down to six, then three, then landed on “Bearing Witness.” It has all the richness, the edges and possibilities described above, and it was written, at least in part, with spring in mind.  (See below)

I highly recommend adding Until Now: New Poems to your collection, and reading it again and again. You’ll get something new from it each time. You’re in luck, because Until Now: New Poems and all her other books, records, and other merchandise are on sale until midnight on March 24th.

Bearing Witness

The trees on this hill are luminous.
A collective of spring green leaves
That seem to glow
From within.
Amid the new foliage
Dark branches are still visible
In patches and places,
Dramatic as inked lines on a page.

They are gathered together
Like a circle of women.
Some young and slender.
Some with babies on their hips.
Some barely standing, bent over with age.

Nothing lasts forever,
Not even winter.
This is the way the forest bears witness
To all that is soft and heavy,
Lost and lasting,
Pardoned and persisting,
How beginnings usually come
When something else ends.

And each year, the wood thrush
and lighting bugs come back
Winking off
And then on.
A mystic
Morse
Code.

The Growing Edge

Carrie has also joined with the author Parker J. Palmer on several projects, including The Growing Edge, collaboration which explores growing edges, personally, vocationally and politically. Together they create live events, personal growth retreats, and the highly rated The Growing Edge Podcast that features authors, activists, poets and musicians. Spirituality and Health Magazine named Parker & Carrie in the top ten spiritual leaders for the next 20 years.

About Carrie Newcomer

Carrie Newcomer is a songwriter, recording artist, performer, educator and activist. She has been described as a “prairie mystic” by the Boston Globe. Carrie has 20 nationally released albums on Available Light & Concord/Rounder Records including A Great Wild Mercy, Until Now, The Point of Arrival and The Beautiful Not Yet. Newcomer has released three books of poetry & essays, A Permeable Life: Poems and Essays, The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems and Essays & Lyrics, and Until Now: New Poems by Carrie Newcomer. Her song “I Should’ve Known Better” appeared on Nickel Creeks’ Grammy-winning gold album This Side, and she earned an Emmy for her PBS special An Evening with Carrie Newcomer.

Carrie is known for her low and resonant voice as “rich as Godiva Chocolate” according to The Austin American-Statesman, for her musical depth and the progressive spiritual content of her songs, poetry and workshops, and for her continued work in justice, spiritual and interfaith communities, and health and hunger organizations. In a time of deep divisions, Carrie has become a national voice for finding how we still connect at the heart of the human story. She lives in the wooded hills of South Central Indiana with her husband and two shaggy rescue dogs.

For details about Carrie’s new music and more information about Carrie Newcomer at her web site: https://www.carrienewcomer.com/home