Days of Grace and Silence

Ann E. Wallace had to fight for language just as she had to fight for air in her journey with Long Covid, and the poems here are hard won marvels, full of insight and compassion and fiercely nurtured hope. Here, the world becomes poem-the virus is a "mad villanelle", each of us a stanza "braided to the other to the other, /with no beginning and no end." Here, breath is painful and precious, never taken for granted. I could feel my own breath change as I read this necessary collection, this important chronicle of our pandemic era. "..for every/piece of you that has broken," the poet reminds us, "a new angle/becomes visible." I'm so grateful for all the new angles Wallace makes visible in these pages, for the narrative she's woven from and about our ruptured time.

-Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother's Suicide

In her evocative new collection Days of Grace And Silence, Ann E. Wallace delves into the profound question of living deliberately in the midst of a pandemic. With poignant insight, she guides us through this time of uncertainty as we coexist yet remain apart. Wallace's poems serve as a profound documentation of our interior worlds and the lodestar that guide us. These missives are a gentle reminder that poetry is a tool for understanding and empathy, as we craft words as evidence to make sense of our lives. In the dailyness of her poems, Wallace uncovers the extraordinary concealed within the ordinary. This book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, making meaning and connections through adversity, offering readers a journey through the uncharted territories-the infinity of hope.

-January Gill O'Neil, author of Glitter Road

Ann E. Wallace navigates her Covid experience with poetic finesse, and in the process reveals to readers her grace, fortitude, and stunning perseverance. Wallace weaves her words into a powerful meditation of spirit from the early days of her illness and of the pandemic and through the later days with effortless eloquence and arresting authenticity. "Could you ever understand, if you were not / here in this quiet place of fear with me?" Wallace's renderings of her plight with Covid and of the rigors of the pandemic are steeped with not only hard truths, but of compassion and luminous respites. Days of Grace and Silence by Ann E. Wallace is a tender, dynamic, and enlightening poetry collection for our times.

-Jeannie E. Roberts, author of As If Labyrinth-Pandemic Inspired Poems and other books