Tourist
Poems by TAK Erzinger
Perfect-bound paperback | 5 x 8 | 94 pages | April 11, 2023 | 979-8986567655
Shortlisted finalist Eyelands Book Awards 2023 (for Published Poetry)
TAK Erzinger invites us on a journey. It’s a deeply personal one: abandonment, discovery, loss and acceptance vie for space on the page. With the help of winged messengers and flora and fauna that creeps, winds and demands we engage, Erzinger presents otherness and connectedness. She leads us through the flux of the human experience with powerful layers of imagery from the natural world.
Revelations are made in the middle of the night, during a pandemic, in the heart of the forest, at the seaside and in food, snapshots of past and present. Through the wonder and surprise of nature, the search for identity is explored, surrendering to what cannot be changed and confronting the mercurial temperament of relationships and how they are perceived, one poem at a time.-Madeleine F. White, author of Mother of Floods
About The Author
TAK Erzinger is an award-winning poet. Her collection At the Foot of the Mountain (Floricanto Press California, 2021) won the University of Indianapolis Etching Press, Whirling Prize 2021 for best nature poetry book. It was also a finalist at The International Book Awards 2022, Willow Run Book Awards and Eyelands Book Awards. Her first audio drama Stella's Constellation was produced by Alt.Stories and Fake Realities Podcasts, out of the UK. She is an American/Swiss poet and artist with a Colombian background. She lives on a foothill of a Swiss alp with her husband and cats.
Reviews
TAK Erzinger's collection Tourist acts as a window into a journey through the poet's experiences as well as the locations in the world she has visited in her life. Her poems such as Chichén Itzá- 1982 and In Between Days bring the reader along with her on this journey. It is hard to choose a favourite poem from this collection. As a whole, they offer a panacea to those who've suffered through the past few years of Covid responses.
-Amos Grieg, Editor-in-Chief, A New Ulster
In her latest poetry collection, Tourist, Erzinger masterfully intertwines the beauty and mystery of nature with the joy and suffering of life. With vivid imagery, she holds up a mirror to the moments that defined her and reflects them back like literary snapshots of landscapes and still life paintings. Erzinger reminds us that the past is never far behind, the present is fickle and fleeting, and the future holds the promise of redemption.
-Cindy Tovar, founder & editor-in-chief of Hispanecdotes
Tourist has a beautiful yearning for connection over trauma, the permanent sideshow of the displaced, and, despite it all, transformation and love.
- Scott Duncan-Fernandez, Senior editor, Somos en escrito Literary Magazine
TAK Erzinger's imagery and metaphor engages us in a world where a woman seeks to understand abandonment, involuntary childlessness, and unconditional love. Readers will enjoy all the stops on this journey that redefine what family could mean. At its heart, Tourist reminds us that what we pass on to future generations surpasses blood ties-and when we love freely and deeply, we create family.
-Liz Whiteacre, author of Hit the Ground and founder of Etchings Press at the University of Indianapolis
In her collection Tourist, TAK Erzinger invites us on a journey. It's a deeply personal one: abandonment, discovery, loss and acceptance vie for space on the page. With the help of winged messengers and flora and fauna that creeps, winds and demands we engage, Erzinger presents otherness and connectedness. She leads us through the flux of the human experience with powerful layers of imagery from the natural world.
-Madeleine F. White, author of Mother of Floods
