Apple Is Just a Bird with No Beak

An Apple Is Just a Bird with No Beak is a thought-provoking meditation on grief told through prose and poetry, one small moment at a time. Bobbie Dumas Panek captures both the whimsical and the profound, from cracked plastic Easter eggs in a glass butter dish to the spiritual gift of a wild fox striding across a field. She explores the difficulties and joys of a long marriage, the stressful life of a newly widowed woman, and the yearning that follows after moving through grief. Throughout, we see her hunger and need to tell stories as she explores the question why do we write?

-Janine DeBaise, author of Body Language

In An Apple Is Just a Bird with No Beak: Poems and Prose, Bobbie Dumas Panek has created an original, startling collection that is as honest and thought provoking as any I've ever read. With deeply detailed poems and diary-like short prose pieces she describes a journey of grief and partial recovery. She is never maudlin or overly sentimental. In fact, her writing explores emotions and reactions from every angle - even with humor and a touch of cynicism. This is powerful stuff, truly reflective of real experience and real struggle. I highly recommend this one.

-Jim Bourey, author of The Distance Between Us and Out There and Back Again

Embryo craving water. Child buying jelly beans to sweeten dysfunctional household of ten. Sudden widow, broken eggshells on Easter table, grief an invasive garden stranger. Woman as barn door offtrack, awakened, painting new reality holding undetermined wants and needs. Gratitude for new love, ultimately slammed by dire diagnosis. Life is whiffle ball whack, small insects felling trees. Bobbie Dumas Panek asks "What is the truth? Yours or mine?" I love and revere hers, and this collection.

-Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Songs from a Lead-Lined Room: Notes - High and Low - From Breast Cancer and Radiation