Thanks for visiting my press page. Review copies are always available and Dede will travel anywhere for workshops, readings, conferences . . . Here are some articles and features about my poetry collections, To Look Out From, and The Meeting Place, as well as some of my other books, published by Hatherleigh Press & Skyhorse Publishing in NYC.
To Look Out From, Reviews & Features—
Download the One Sheet/Press Kit:
ToLookOutFrom_OneSheetFeb2017.docx:
The Berkshire Eagle
Review by Charles Butterfield.
“In several Cummings’ poems, the speaker looks out from our coasts, east and west. The unbounded sky, the sheltering coves, the sand and rocks, the spartina grass growing and blowing in the sand — these stir her imagination and memory.”
The Commons
Review by Richard Henke.
“With no hyperbole, Cummings can say that To Look Out From was a lifetime in the making. . . . Billy Collins, poet laureate of the U.S. from 2001 to 2003, writes, ‘Even her poems of memory and family are driven by curiosity and enlivened by quick maneuvers and spritely turns.’”
Vermont Digger
Review by Kevin O’Connor.
“The book starts with a 1978 poem, “Written at Home on My Mother’s Typewriter,” that caught the attention of former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, who notes her work is ‘driven by curiosity and enlivened by quick maneuvers and spritely turns.’”
Physical and Emotional Landscapes: Two Perspectives on Nature in To Look Out From by Dede Cummings. Review by Tim Weed.
“A keen and patient observer of the New England landscape, Cummings beckons us into her poems with images so transfixing that they’re impossible not to visualize.”
Foreword Reviews
Review by Matt Sutherland, editor-in-chief.
“Pity the poet who writes of salt ponds and claw marks on beech trees without the requisite natural-world familiarity. Better: pity her reader. There is no doubt that Dede Cummings’s hiking boots have suffered the ravages of Vermont blizzards and the indignities of losing their way in muddy New England woodstocks. Her technically beautiful, dreamy poems span many years of memory and favor the cavorting of family life.” —Foreword Reviews
Join Vermont Poet Laureate Chard deNiord as he talks with author, poet, book designer, and publisher Dede Cummings about her latest book of poetry.
April 25, 2017 ~ The Vermont House of Representatives Devotion by Dede Cummings
At the request of Representative Valerie Stuart, Dede read something in honor of National Poetry Month and the struggle for climate justice at Standing Rock . . . a poem entitled “Cuba Cascade” for the devotion in the House of Representatives at the Vermont State House. A devotional is a two-to-three minute inclusive homily, life lesson, song, poem, prayer, reading, or musical piece appropriate to the setting. The devotional helps to set the tone and allows a few moments for reflection and contemplation.
Read two of Dede’s poems from To Look Out From published by Figroot Press.
“Dede Cummings is a writer and commentator for Vermont Public Radio. At Middlebury College, she was the recipient of the Mary Dunning Thwing Award, attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and studied with Hayden Carruth at Bennington. Her poetry has been published in Mademoiselle, The Lake, InQuire, Vending Machine Press, Kentucky Review, Figroot Press, MomEgg Review, Connotation Press, and Bloodroot Literary Magazine. She was a Discover/The Nation poetry semi-finalist and was awarded a partial fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Dede won the 4th annual Homebound Publications Poetry Prize for her collection To Look Out From (April 2017).”
Featured in the Rutland Herald with Megan Buchanan and James Crews . . . The trio is reading this fall throughout New England. Review by Janelle Faignant, Arts Correspondent.
“Cummings’ book was a long time coming. A poetry major who wakes up early to walk every morning, she good-naturedly refers to herself as a late-in-life poet, and believes in the old writers’ wisdom, ‘Write what you know.’”
Vermont poet, publisher, and book designer, Dede Cummings on an interview with radio host of Write the Book, Shelagh Shapiro. Write the Book is a celebration of reading and writing, featuring interviews with authors, poets, agents, editors, and many others who bring books into our lives. The conversations are craft-oriented, offering insight into the vision that brings a narrative to the page, and the journey that puts a published book into our hands. Roughly half of the interviews feature Vermont guests, while others hail from across the country and around the world.
BOOK PROMPT inspired by Dede’s Write the Book interview:
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is inspired by the conversation you just heard with Dede Cummings. Dede found the title for her collection To Look Out From, by researching the etymology of the name of the town where she was raised, Matunuck, RI. Matunuck, as we learn in the collection, is possibly a term that comes from a Southern New England Algonquian term meaning “high place,” “high point,” or “to look out from.” In your own world, is there a place name or otherwise relevant term that you hear all the time but perhaps have never investigated? Maybe you live in Winooski. Did you know that Winooski comes from an Abenaki term that means “Land of the Wild Onion?” Is your last name from a place you could research and learn more about? Do a little investigative work and then write a poem, a story, or an essay that is inspired by what you learn.
PRAISE FOR THE MEETING PLACE
”Neighborhood bullies, first love, the ties that thread sisters, mothers, a long marriage. The poems in The Meeting Place follow the longitudinal lines of family, as well as the globe. They take us to Portugal, Cuba, Vermont, Ireland and beyond. And like the jars of “achingly red Roma tomatoes,” Cummings describes, they invite you to open them and feast.” —Danusha Laméris
REVIEW IN SEVEN DAYS by Benjamin Aleshire
“Thinking of the book itself in terms of confluence makes for a pleasant entry point, and Cummings delivers. What follows is a mix of memories and present-day meditations, often personal and always benefiting from a keen poetic eye for observation, along with the occasional lyrical flourish.”
Benjamin Aleshire
Dede Cummings 