"The essence of a poem" writes Shirley Russak Wachtel in this poetry collection spanning over thirty years, "is the middle of things." This notion is beautifully illustrated as, in a variety of poetic styles including rhyme, free verse, pantoume, and haiku, she illumines life's "ordinary" activities. Whether it is contemplating a red cardinal in her own backyard, emptying the sand from the pockets of her son's shorts, making a tuna fish sandwich, or watching the swollen backs of old women receding in the distance, these lyrical discoveries explore the supreme beauty in life's smallest, most precious, moments.



PRAISE for IN THE MELLOW LIGHT



"These poems by Shirley Russak Wachtel are crisp as April's morning air. They are crisp with human detail even as they connect us with the wide world of nature. Wachtel has a great heart, and she has the ability to let us see this great heart, her marvelous perceptions, through her poetry, her art. Praise!"



-Emanuel di Pasquale, author of Cartwheel to the Moon (Cricket Books, 2003), Writing Anew: New and Selected Poems (Bordighera, 2007), winner of the Chelsea Award for Poetry and The Raiziss/dePalchi Fellowship for translations from the Italian (sponsored by Academy of American Poets).



"Shirley Russak Wachtel's poetry is grounded in the everyday of middle-class America, old Little League T-shirts, dogs dreaming of running through high grass, the slow, steady passage of days in a suburban neighborhood. What makes her poetry so effective is the realization of the miraculous hiding within the commonplace...matched effectively by Wachtel's skillful use of refrain. Overall, Wachtel's poetry reminds one of a walk along the beach--it is to be savored for the rhythmic music of the surf as well as for the beautiful treasures one often discovers deposited by the tide, waiting to be discovered."



-Mathew V. Spano, PhD, author of over sixty poems, featured in dust of summers (Red Moon Press, 2007); Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Written About the Game (Norton, 2007); and The Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary (Jersey Shore Press, 2006).

SHIRLEY RUSSAK WACHTEL, a professor of English, holds a Doctor of Letters Degree from Drew University. She has been writing poetry for over thirty years. Her poems have appeared in Middlesex and other publications, but she is best known for her memoir, The Story of Blima and several books for children. She lives in East Brunswick, New Jersey.