Words for Flying is available from FutureCycle Press (click book cover to order)
Click here to order on IndieBound
Click here to order on IndieBound
"Why do the best of Chris Abbate’s poems make me cry? Could it be envy, because they’re so good they make me wish I’d written them? Could it be the sadness, vulnerability, and love mixed in with the playfulness of these poems? Or maybe their numinousness, which is also always somehow subtly part of the mix? Or is it simply that voice, finally, of “an ache of a boy,” its honesty, its accessibility, its tenderness, speaking a sort of “unspoken language of boys,” especially to those of us who most needed a voice like Abbate’s back in our own boyhoods, and still sorely need it today? It’s all these things. And it’s also because, as with any great music, beautiful singing can have that effect on us. And we wipe our eyes so that we may keep on reading."
~ Paul Hostovsky
~ Paul Hostovsky
Bookstores where Words for Flying is available
Malaprops Bookstore/Cafe
55 Haywood St. Asheville, NC
Quail Ridge Books
4209-100 Lassiter Mill Rd., Raleigh, NC
Scuppernong Books
304 S. Elm St., Greensboro, NC
So & So Books
704 N. Person St., Raleigh, NC
Wake County Libraries
55 Haywood St. Asheville, NC
Quail Ridge Books
4209-100 Lassiter Mill Rd., Raleigh, NC
Scuppernong Books
304 S. Elm St., Greensboro, NC
So & So Books
704 N. Person St., Raleigh, NC
Wake County Libraries
Talk About God is available from Main Street Rag (click book cover to order)
“God is the glue for connection and mystery in Chris Abbate’s Talk About God, a masterful debut collection. These poems are about his Catholic childhood, the yearning to break away from convention and the unyielding need for patterns to manage the unforgiving nature of life. Yet, most of all, these poems speak of the connections between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, and friends and neighbors. Abbate explores the chaos of adolescence and many years later, reflects on the breakup of his parents’ over fifty-year marriage through the exacting lens of ritual and geometry with carefully nuanced images that earn every bit of their screen time. Every poem in Talk About God reminds you to feel gratitude for the beauty of the present moment and not to forget how you can create a joyous and meaningful life.”
~ Alice Osborn, author of Heroes without Capes
In Chris Abbate’s new collection, Talk About God, we find a depth of faith in everyday moments. It is found in delivering newspapers in winter and in the comfort of platters of cavatelli. Reading these artfully constructed poems, we are “waiting on gravity,” sitting on the edge of our seats for the next word – the next achingly beautiful image. These poems sing with authenticity and grace. We enter a world where, “God moves from the inside out.”
~ Cristina M. R. Norcross, Editor, Blue Heron Review. Author of Still Life Stories and Amnesia and Awakenings
~ Alice Osborn, author of Heroes without Capes
In Chris Abbate’s new collection, Talk About God, we find a depth of faith in everyday moments. It is found in delivering newspapers in winter and in the comfort of platters of cavatelli. Reading these artfully constructed poems, we are “waiting on gravity,” sitting on the edge of our seats for the next word – the next achingly beautiful image. These poems sing with authenticity and grace. We enter a world where, “God moves from the inside out.”
~ Cristina M. R. Norcross, Editor, Blue Heron Review. Author of Still Life Stories and Amnesia and Awakenings
Bookstores where Talk About God is available
Malaprops Bookstore/Cafe
55 Haywood St. Asheville, NC
Quail Ridge Books
4209-100 Lassiter Mill Rd. Raleigh, NC
River Bend Bookshop
2217 Main St. Glastonbury, CT
Scuppernong Books
304 S. Elm St., Greensboro, NC
So & So Books
704 N. Person St. Raleigh, NC
The Country Bookshop
140 NW Broad St. Southern Pines, NC
Wake County Libraries
55 Haywood St. Asheville, NC
Quail Ridge Books
4209-100 Lassiter Mill Rd. Raleigh, NC
River Bend Bookshop
2217 Main St. Glastonbury, CT
Scuppernong Books
304 S. Elm St., Greensboro, NC
So & So Books
704 N. Person St. Raleigh, NC
The Country Bookshop
140 NW Broad St. Southern Pines, NC
Wake County Libraries