Ellaraine Lockie Reviews

Ellaraine Lockie

PRAISE FOR
Blue Ribbons at the County Fair

Ellaraine is a true independent, unfazed by literary convention...She is one of the best, & Blue Ribbons at the County Fair is essential Lockie, worth twice the price.
-- Eric Greinke, Presa

Blue Ribbons at the County Fair is a fiercely beautiful and quietly angry collection rendered in language that is as rocky as the Montana landscape. It is highly recommended not only to those with an interest in contemporary women writers, but for readers who love the American West and are eager to read more from its talented, but often underrepresented, authors.
-- JoSelle Vanderhooft, The Pedestal Magazine

Her poems speak of times that have changed, relationships that have been lost, memories that have been tenaciously hoarded. These memories are like flowers pressed between the pages of a book; they are the book lyrically and exquisitely written -- a celebration of many years, many blue ribbons won at the county fair.
-- David Fraser, Ascent Aspirations

Lockie is a true poetic artist, painting the canvas with knowing words that have lived these honest, simple moments. . . Lockie's Blue Ribbons at the County Fair is chock full of smartly written, honest, and interesting poems.
-- Up the Staircase

Ms. Lockie has a sure, calm voice as she plumbs the mysteries of emotion and meaning arising in the course of everyday life and moments. . . All the stages of a person's life are here, recounted with care and humor. . . And she's not kidding: each of the 34 poems won a first-place prize somewhere (as well as being previously published one to eleven times).
-- Phil Wagner, The Iconoclast

PRAISE FOR
Finishing Lines

The final line on Finishing Lines is that it s a thoroughly first rate, valuable piece of work.
-- Robert K. Johnson, Ibbetson Street

Finishing Lines by Ellaraine Lockie is an honest and compelling account of the end of the line . . . evocative, honest, and she doesn't pull her punches. Lockie gives you the whole deal, warts and all.
-- Doug Holder, Ibbetson Press

Lockie's fourth book of poetry, Finishing Lines, reflects her refined grasp of language and form.
-- Charles Ries, Word Riot

Easy to be enthralled by this collection. Right away you feel as if you have stepped into the ring for a heavyweight prize fight as the powerful images contact you with the force of an uppercut...reading this collection is like going on a pubcrawl with an old friend. Some of the poems you quaff down like a pint of Guinness between dart games. Others you slowly cherish like the sip of a fine old single malt whiskey. But always you know that your friend is beside you to say the words that will be unarguable and rather comforting. The sequence of poems is well edited so that the themes and images take you through a process which ends optimistically. It is a wild ride, full of chuckles, tears and a'has.
-- Tom Conroy, League of Laboring Poets

PRAISE FOR
Crossing the Center Line

This is an excellent book of poetry...If you want an insight into the feminine mind, then there is no better place to start than here.
-- Amanda Morgan, Splizz 43, Wales

Collection crammed full of long, muscular poems -- unfailingly terse, disarmingly simple...and a good deal of expertise in her racing, crafted free-verse.
-- Anne MacLeod, Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria)

...thirty-four well-crafted and passionately eloquent poems.
-- Joseph Verrilli, Joe’s Ragtime Review

Ellaraine Lockie is one of the rare poets who entertain as well as touch the reader...Observant wit, pain and total honesty are constant ingredients in Lockie’s poems...It is impossible not to finish reading any poem by Ellaraine Lockie...a strong voice for women in a sea of male poetry.
-- Janet Kenny, Numbat Poetry Journal, Australia

This poet finds inspiration in all occurrences, events and sights, where others might be bored or lost; not she! ... (she) showcases her unique approach to words, making our ordinary language into something special.
-- Linda Hutton, Women in the Arts

For those of you expecting an image of a quiet, matronly woman rocking her way into that “good night,” well look again. The poems in this chap have a few bones to pick, and they go right down to the marrow.
-- Doug Holder, Ibbetson Street Press

PRAISE FOR
Coloring Outside the Lines

...I’ve never been more forthrightly and devastatingly hit right between the eyes...Lots of sex here and Lockie’s great at bringing it alive for you...nobody can do passionate encounters and exits better than Lockie.
-- Hugh Fox, Ibbetson St. Press

‘Poetry is a counterfeit creation. . .’
Indeed this series of poems may be made up of ‘...things that are not,’ but, for sure, the ‘things’ are admirably employed...A proof that these poems are something more than the usual overly emotional style that often characterizes this genre.
-- Jones Av (Canada)

Coloring Outside the Lines is almost in the Erica Jong class, and one to keep. How she got Plowman, a Ministry for Christ publisher, to publish her “Still wet with love sweat" poems, I don’t know.
-- Giovanni Malito, Brobingnagian Times, (Ireland)

Be sure to catch this distinctive collection for its fierce examinations of womanhood and lust...
-- LB Sedlacek, The Poetry Market Ezine

Maturity, mixed with some bittersweet memories of how things should have been, treated humorously...It’s those ending lines that make the corners of a mouth turn upward.
-- Milton Kerr, Love’s Chance

Such is the magic of Ellaraine Lockie’s writing. It is never disappointing. The surprises just keep on coming.
-- Joseph Verrilli, Shoes

Her words bring devastating clarity. Ms. Lockie’s words will move and shake you.
-- Lou Hertz, Nanny Fanny

PRAISE FOR
Midlife Muse

Well-known prizewinning poet Ellaraine Lockie pulls no punches, relying on direct, adjective-free language that speaks to every reader, male or female.
-- Linda Hutton, Women in the Arts

Ms. Ellaraine Lockie certainly has a way with words; she is one of the most phonetically-convincing poets whose work it has been my pleasure to read.
-- Joseph Verilli, Joe's Ragtime Review

While not necessarily being a humorist, Ellaraine Lockie displays the fact that intelligence and light heartedness, within a link, make great survivor tools.
-- Milton Kerr, Love's Chance Magazine

Lockie's well constructed ponderings and observations are not unlike the onset of clarity that come to us all, as we move inch by inch into a more mature (and sometimes wiser) reality.
-- Liz Zorn, Mind's Eye Newsletter

These poems are very vivid and arresting descriptions...They are stories of lust, change and discomfort, but more, they are poems of fear, emptiness, loneliness, confusion, determination, vigor, bravery and love.
-- Johnathan Penton, Unlikely Stores: A Collection of Literary Art

An unique book of poems. . . entertaining, humorous but have many deep and sobering messages and thoughts. I truly enjoyed reading this book. Well done!
-- Noel Henry, The Plowman Press

ONLINE FULL REVIEWS

www.thepedestalmagazine.com/gallery.php?item=2386

www.rattle.com/blog/2008/11/blue-ribbons-at-the-county-fair-by-ellaraine-lockie/

www.upthestaircase.org/lockie.htm

www.wordriot.org/template_2.php?ID=1489

www.ascentaspirations.ca/blueribbons.htm

halfdrunkmuse.com/archives/reviews/lockie/finishing_lines
(Charles Ries)