River by the Glass is a collection of poems spanning two decades. The poems, says the photographer in River by the Glass, Ron Pickup, contain a whimsical wit and metaphysical humor. With biting humor and haunting verse, the poems reflect visual puzzles and conundrums of life, thus the viewing of the River, by Glass, through lenses - windows, screens, mirrors, and drinking vessels. The poet recalls a time in her childhood when her barefoot ways met the barbarism in the human defacement of nature. She witnessed broken beer bottles with ugly shards of brown glass marring the lovely boulders, sand, and water purity of her favorite river haunt, the Kern River. She could never understand how people could deface the lovely places in our lives, the only kind of refuge from the asphalt and concrete desecration that levels our aspirations and deadens our nerves and senses. Yet, in a strange kaleidoscopic way, those shards of glass that derived from sand and water, seemed to glitter and demand meaning for being what they were-products. They existed and they were there, clashing with the ideal of what she envisioned. This collection is the poet's way of cleansing some of the impure places in the human heart and exploring the mysteries in human behavior and the natural world. The poems give a glimpse into the quirks of humanity. Subjects include the leaving of loved ones and the world of dementia the meeting with a deer that connects the aspects of wild and tame and other topics such as parthenogenesis, gold panning, gardening, skipping stones, finding a harmonica in the river sand making coffee in the morning the dying of friends the haunting by a black dog when even holy water couldn't protect enough contemplating the breaking of a bull pine limb while a couple sleeps the celebration of a woman's cycle of birthing coming to an end with the flow of the "Tuolumne River" and poems that whimsically explore love through visions and images of the particular, spilling into the universal. Take a sip of River by the Glass and quench your thirst. You may find yourself drinking harder than you thought. In her new collection, River by the Glass, Monika Rose shows her formidable range. By turns meditative, profound and imaginative, her poems are always, at their core, genuine and unflinchingly honest. Whether rooted in landscape or familial memory, these poems are rich in metaphor and finely crafted. With the precision of a scalpel and the clarity of fresh water, River by the Glass takes the reader on a journey of discovery. -Kathie Isaac-Luke, author of Chrysalides, 2010, Dragonfly Press. Monika Rose inhabits the mother lode country, one of those geographies that produces poets whose voices emerge from the din. Not far from where the Squaw Valley Community of Writers winter with Gary Snyder, she crafts poems informed by her high-country rural environment. With this volume she proves she's not only a whirlwind editor but an excellent poet as well. No wonder she's dedicated to bringing out the best of her community. These fine poems could have been written no where else. - Kevin Arnold, author of Sureness of Horses, 19 Poems Around a Divorce, and Do Not Think Badly of Me "Rose's poetry captures the texture and currents of the river, translating water into words." --Mary Mackey, novelist The poems in River by the Glass are rich with the details of the earth moving moment by moment from death to life, from life to death. Monika Rose understands the union of these transformations and records them with the energy, contemplation, and originality of finely composed poetry. Like glass, her poetry offers both a reflection of the physical world and a window into our human experiences of its shifting beauty and mystery. -- Pattiann Rogers, poet Monika Rose, at home in the foothills of Calaveras County since the early 1980s, is founding director and editor of Manzanita Writers Press, a nonprofit literary publisher. She has been published in several anthologies and literary magazines. Her book of poems, River by the Glass, by GlenHill Publishing, and Bed Bumps, a children's book, will soon be joined by a novel, a collection of short fiction, a second children's book, and a new poetry collection. She has edited numerous Manzanita anthologies, including Out of the Fire, Wild Edges, Wine, Cheese & Chocolate, and Voices of Wisdom, volumes 1-3, plus 7 Manzanita prose & poetry anthologies, as well as novels, poetry, and nonfiction for authors. Monika has edited over 25 books for individual authors in our region. With a Masters Degree in English, she is Adjunct Associate Professor of English at San Joaquin Delta College and has taught high school English for 30 years, as well as workshops in writing for Delta College conferences, Gold Rush Writers Conferences, Tuolumne Writers Retreats, the Voices program, and Manzanita Writers Press workshops.