'THE STARTLED LAND' PRAISED AS A MASTERPIECE IN ADVANCE REVIEWS

Wind River Press is proud to announce the publication of The Startled Land, an epic exploration of honesty and hope in a world brocaded with the trials of everyday life and the tragedies of an embattled land. Labeled a masterpiece in advance reviews, The Startled Land heralds the arrival of an ambitious and worldly voice.

Wind River Press is proud to announce the publication of Rochelle Mass's poetry collection The Startled Land ($14 Trade, $5 PDF eBook), an epic exploration of honesty and hope in a world brocaded with the trials of everyday life and the tragedies of an embattled land. Labeled a masterpiece in advance reviews, The Startled Land heralds the arrival of an ambitious and worldly voice.

From Rochelle Mass:
"If you come to a land with no ancestors to bless you," I read recently, "you have to be your own ancestor," This was the case in l973, when my husband and our two young daughters settled in Kibbutz Beit HaShita, in the Jezreel valley of Israel where we watched the pioneers tilling their dreams in the tough land, and saw their children shaping their own, then, twenty-five years later we moved across the way, to a small community crawling up the Gilboa mountains.

These are my addresses, the landscapes that feature in the ongoing dialogue of then and now. I have been introduced as Canadian-Israeli. Could be called double-exiling, but I gratefully call it double birthing. This has taught me about displacement and replacement, that home is essentially the place where everything makes sense, that imagination is under the scrutiny of fact. That dreams and reason sometimes collide.

The story has grown as one page followed another, till it became a familiar map. I trust the transitions, am devoted to the dilemmas. It continues as I sort the fabric of the flesh, witness the decisions of the seasons. My guess is that the story is bigger than it seemed at the time.

I see that there was no better place to start than I came to join the women. Yet, I must admit that's not the whole story.

I realize now, I had
no choice but to bend,
invent new posture.

About the Author:
Canadian born, Rochelle Mass grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and moved to Israel in 1973 with her husband and two young daughters. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of two previous collections of poetry; her work has appeared in US, Canadian, and Israeli publications. She is a translator and the editor of Kibbutz Trends, a biannual journal of contemporary issues.

Wind River Press, founded in 2001, publishes The Paumanok Review and Critique Magazine as well as select full-length books in print and electronic formats. Named for Wyoming's famed Wind River Country, Wind River Press strives to produce products that take advantage of new and emerging technologies while embracing timeless standards of quality. Visit online at http://www.windriverpress.com/.