Elizabeth J. Coleman, Michael Craig Palmer - Experiencing Autumn / by Sharon Israel

LISTEN to my December 21st, 2021 WIOX show for my conversation with poet Elizabeth J. Coleman and photographer Michael Craig Palmer on their beautiful new book, Experiencing Autumn, and their unusual and imaginative collaboration. 

 Elizabeth J. Coleman is the editor of HERE: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), with a foreword from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She is the author of two poetry collections, published by Spuyten Duyvil Press (PROOF and THE FIFTH GENERATION), and translated Lee Slonimsky’s sonnet collection PYTHAGORE, AMOUREUX into French (Folded Word Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Colorado Review, Rattle, and Bellevue Literary Review, and in a number of anthologies.  Elizabeth’s website is www.elizabethjcoleman.com.

 Michael Craig Palmer is a photographer who has explored the architectural legacy of the German Jewish exodus from Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, he was unable to continue with architectural projects. Luckily, in September 2020, he was invited to join the Hudson Valley camera excursions hosted by the noted photographer Jade Doskow of Peekskill, New York. Over the three months of autumn 2020, Michael photographed the vibrant and changing fall colors up and down the Hudson. In the snow and cold of January and February, he assembled these pictures into the statement of life's continuity from season to season, year to year.