Erika Moss Gordon’s “Phases”

25 Feb Erika Moss Gordon’s “Phases”

Most of us associate the name Erika Moss Gordon with the Telluride Film Festival, where she does community outreach programs as vice president of filmanthropy and education. But Film Fest is her day job. Erika’s passion (and talent) is writing poetry. Check out her newly released book, “Phases.” Reading and book-signing at Cimeron Roasters & Book, Ridgway, Sunday, February 28, 5 p.m. Or purchase the book at  Telluride’s Between the Covers Bookstore.

Simultaneously sensual and meditative, the poems in Erika Moss Gordon’s “Phases” honor the sense of the sacred in our daily life, as the author explores the delights of the natural world, of love and the beauty of the human spirit. Published by Middle Creek Publishing & Audio in Beulah, CO, and with cover art by local artist Kellie Day, “Phases” is a wholehearted Colorado collaboration.

This is Erika’s second book of poetry: it follows “Of Eyes and Iris,” released in 2013. Rex Weyler, co-founder of Greenpeace International and author of “Greenpeace and Blood of the Land” wrote:

“Erika’s poetry opens the mystic door that transforms the events of daily life into moments of epiphany. We discover who we are, not in grand, award-winning actions, but in paying attention to how we relate, everyday, to the world around us.”  

A celebration of mystery and deeply mindful in a modern mountain-west mode, the tight simplicity of Erika’s lines are as unclouded as the Colorado sky. These poems allow frailty to become elegance, their inner resilience unfolding a power rooted in place and moment. Skillful line-breaks imbue the work with a fixed-economy treasured by minimalists, rewarding the inquisitive reader with added meaning and shadow.

“Reading these poems, I find myself simultaneously wanting to applaud and to sit very, very still and let their wisdom do its quiet work,” wrote Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Western Slope Poet Laureate, “I thrill in these revelations—layers of knowing and unknowing, these dances with the mystery. This collection is very much driven by love, is a mirror to meet you wherever you are in your own journey of how to love the world, to love yourself. “