HALF NEW YEAR

Book cover featuring a painting by Paul Cezanne

While it's customary to note the passage of one year to the next, people seldom stop to reflect on the day that marks the exact middle of the year — July 2nd — when 182 days have passed and 182 days remain. From July 2-12, 2014, Silver Birch Press celebrated Half New Year with poetry that touched on the theme of half, middle, or center — or erasure poems created from page 72 (for 7/2) in any book.

The resulting poems — which ranged from the humorous to the heartfelt, from silly to serious, and from witty to whimsical, and much more — are now available in Half New Year: A Collection of Poetry About Midpoints, an 82-page, full-color book that features reproductions of over 30 paintings by a master artist.

For this collection, we chose paintings by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) — an artist who left behind a range of what many considered "unfinished" canvases.

The 27 poets and poems in the Half New Year Poetry Collection include:

Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier / The Gathering
Mary-Marcia Casoly / Venus on the Half Year
Tobi Cogswell / Remembered on the Half Century
Daniel Patrick Delaney / In the Middle
Barbara Eknoian / Happy Half Year
Mark Erickson / where the grass grows
Adelle Foley / Half New Year Haiku
Jack Foley / Year of the Horse (in two halves
Shreyas Gokhale / A Happier Half Year
Deborah Herman / Though a Little Out of Fashion
Veronica Hosking / Rain Drops
Clara Hsu / Japanese Garden
Mathias Jansson / Vertical Descent
Jax NTP / if the value of a cup is the emptiest space inside of it
Wm. Todd King / Body Doubles
Roz Levine / Behind the Drapes
Tamara Madison / Midsummer
Adrian Manning / Half Way
Jocelyn Mosman / New Day
D.A. Pratt / Happy New Half Year!
Patrick T. Reardon / Sonnet 18/2
Sheikha A. / Halved Sanity
Rachael Stanford / marching towards the light
Jacque Stukowski / My "Middle" blue earth
Matthew M.C. Tapp / Half New Year's Day
dirk velvet / celebrate half
Christopher P.P. White / Half a Year of Being Half a Man