Rue Obscure (Paperback or Softback)

Betsy Mars's first full-length collection, Rue Obscure, reflects on a life spent contending with the realities of living . . . and dying. With honesty and humor, Mars ponders the existential questions: how to survive loss, what connects us, how to live with regret and mystery, what gives life purpose. Rue Obscure compassionately explores the altogether human ways we strive, fail, cope, and find consolation in a world that can be frightening--at times cruel--where tragedy can strike at random.

Betsy Mars is a poet, compulsive photographer, and an editor at Gyroscope Review. Betsy's poems are widely available online and in print in over 80 publications such as ONE ART, SWWIM, The California Quarterly, Thimble, and the anthology Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Motown Poetry Review (Madville Press). Betsy is the author of two chapbooks, Alinea, and In the Muddle of the Night, the latter co-written with Alan Walowitz. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and were chosen as the winner of the Alexandria Quarterly's First Line Poetry Contest Series and of The Poetry Salon's Practiced Poets Prize. Betsy's photos have been featured in Spank the Carp, Soul Poetry, and used in Rattle as an ekphrastic prompt. She is a lifelong poet, writing her first poem (at age 5 or so) in Portuguese--an elegy for her cat--while her family lived in Brazil. Betsy currently works intermittently as a substitute teacher, but her "mission" is poetry. And, apparently, supporting the local veterinary professionals.

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