Distant Relations
Publisher: Loblolly PressISBN: 979-8-9900730-3-6Genre: PoetryPrice: $20"Distant Relations is an anti-pastoral evocation of rural North Carolina, a sort of country Kind Of Blue built on the rigorous complexity of carefully wrought meter and rhyme. Within this vast, subtle lyric multiverse, plainspoken, austere motifs emerge and re-emerge--horses, scarecrows, trailers, muscadines, fog, stars, fields--circling back, always circling back to human pain and mute yearning, yes, but also the redemptive mystery of nature and love." --Annie Woodford
Cheryl Whitehead is a poet, musician, and teacher from Snow Camp, North Carolina. She is the author of So Ghosts Might Stop Composing (Finishing Line Press), with work in Callaloo, The Hopkins Revew, Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, and more. She was the winner of an emerging writer's grant from the Astraea Foundation and has received scholarships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Quest Writers' Conference, and The North Carolina Writers' Network.
Reviews
Cheryl Whitehead is both a gifted poet and a gifted storyteller—and these can be two distinct, albeit complimentary talents. In Distant Relations (Loblolly Press 2025), Whitehead weaves these dual talents together into an always engaging, often uncanny collection of poetry rich with family, nature, culture, and transcendency. Her verses reverberate with turmoil and grace, all carefully captured in stunning images and potent phrases….All in all, this is a fine, evocative collection of poetry, well worth the reading—and rereading. To visit the world and the kith and kin found in Cheryl Whitehead’s Distant Relations is to visit a rich place, filled with vivid, vibrant life and meaning.
Claire Matturro