Stone Wishes: On the Colorado Plateau
Stone Wishes: On the Colorado Plateau is a compilation
that celebrates the beauty and mystery of the Colorado Plateau. The photographer, Michael Salamacha, and I met while we were backpacking in Paria Canyon and we later worked together as rangers. His stunning photos capture the light and shadows of every season on the Plateau. The images are a powerful complement to the poetry. Each poem in Stone Wishes is deeply rooted in place, with a spirit all its own. We offer this book to you as a gift from our time spent wandering throughout the Colorado Plateau.
Special thanks to Jodie and Kaitlea at Legacy Book Press for creating such a beautiful book and for helping us get it into the great Out There. Enjoy!
Available from Amazon in digital or paper form, and at Willow Canyon. A limited number of copies, with fine paper for the photographs, are available directly from the author.
Please email an inquiry.
Feedback from readers is greatly appreciated, either on Amazon or by email: heidibugart.info@gmail.com. Many thanks!
Praise for Stone Wishes:
"Stone Wishes: On the Colorado Plateau, a collection of black and white photographs by Michael Salamacha
and poetry by Heidi Elizabeth Blankenship, belongs on the bookshelf or better yet in the backpack
of all who know and love the red rock wilderness of the Southwest.
There is a crispness and a simplicity to the poems and the pictures that mirrors the landscape."
--Rick Kempa, founder and editor of Deep Wild Journal: Writing from the Backcountry; author of Too Vast for Sleep
"Heidi Blankenship's Stone Wishes on the Colorado Plateau is a tribute to the keen observation poets do so well. Her sense of textures of Earth’s fabric reminds us of the buckles and patterns in stone topography; her awareness of sound attunes us to wind through an owl’s feathers, the muffled breathing of horses, the dripping of spring water music; her senses relay the scent of flood water coming down an arroyo, sweet sage on the breeze, the smell of rain lingering on your lips; her clear imagery presents us with lightning over the reef, lenticular clouds, and a spring screaming with yellow monkey flowers. These are the words of experience— and her love for the Colorado Plateau.
Paired with Mike Salamacha’s striking photography of places reminding us what all of this is about, Blankenship shares stories of her encounters with wild critters and gently urges readers to be more mindful of these fragile homes on which so many depend. . . .Stone Wishes is a beautiful treatise on what is good and what remains. Carry this slim volume of inspiration with you and listen for the “siren’s song… of a canyon wren.”
--Margaret Pettis, artist and author of The Saddlebag Poems, Appaloosa Earth: Great Basin Haiku, and Chokecherry Rain.
Memorizing Shadows
The Process
This little book began as a thank you gift for those who helped me and cheered me along when I thru-hiked the Arizona Trail. The poems were written while hiking, and the paper cut artwork was derived from my photos. Thirty-seven copies were made and distributed, along with an original piece of artwork. Friends asked for more copies, so I sent it out into the Universe. It came back from Shanti Arts Publishing in a lovely new form, for anyone to enjoy.
To order a copy, visit Shanti Arts Publishing.
You may also find a copy at a bookstore or a park near you:
Antigone Books, Back of Beyond Books, Bright Side Bookshop,
Maria's Bookshop, Oracle State Park, The Book Shop,
The Printed Garden, Willow Canyon, Summit Hut.
For information about the 800 mile Arizona Trail,
visit the Arizona Trail Association.
"These poems are gems: simple, yet very powerful. The animate souls of the desert’s countless creatures and features speak here in sparse, crystalline verse. The poems are evocative of both the land and human relationship. The narrative thread that links them, sometimes whimsical, sometimes humorous provides the personal touch.
Few words, short lines, short strokes, yet as packed as can be with all the magic of a deeply felt experience of the natural world. Heidi Elizabeth Blankenship is the Emily Dickinson of the Desert."
— Gary Cox, author of Glass Towers and Goats
"From the day Memorizing Shadows arrived in the mail I have been raving about it to all of my friends.
Anyone preparing to hike the Arizona Trail needs to have this book. The poems and artwork are a treasure."
— Steve Goobic, life-long Hiker
A review by Disco appears on podcast #66 of The Trail Show at the 1:44:10 segment: www.thetrailshow.com
"I came across Heidi's book at one of those neighborhood book boxes. I was going to read it slowly, savoring it and its images by only reading a poem a day - but ended up devouring it in one evening. I couldn't put it down!
So much of it sang to my hiker's heart."
— Dante Jericho, author of Sacred Changes, Sacred Choices: Meditations from the I Ching