Chameleon Hours

FromWays of Going for Steve Will it be like paragliding gossamer takeoff, seedlike drifting down into a sunlit, unexpected grove? Or ski-jumpingheadlong soaring, ski-tips piercing clouds, crystal revelations astonishing my goggles? . . . . Skittery flicker of a glare-weary lizard startled into the sheltering wings of a leaf, rusting freighter with a brimming hold shimmering onto a crimson edge. . . . Sad rower pushed from shore, I'll disappear like circles summoned by an oar's dip. However I burn through to the next atmosphere, let your dear face be the last thing I see. Whether writing poems about North American life and landscape; or love poems; or elegies for family and friends; or poems on serious, debilitating illness and the transformations it can effectElise Partridge offers inChameleon Hourswords forged by suffering and courage. Full of wit and empathy, Partridge's poems draw inspiration from sources as whimsical as tortoises and pontoons, as poignant as a homeless woman taking shelter inside a post office on a winter night, and as deeply personal as her own cancer diagnosis at a young age.Chameleon Hoursis a book about the rewards of being reminded of one's own mortality and the lyric expression of life in all its intensity. Praise forFielder's Choice "Partridge is a technical wizard for whom thinking and feeling are not separate activities. She is a hawk-like observer of the particular . . . many times ascending to pitch-perfect verse."Ken Babstock,Globe and Mail(Canada)

Elise Partridge is a teacher and editor.  She is the author of Fielder’s Choice.