Terracotta Smoke

Throughout her career, Toni Rabenâ€s creative efforts have led to design work on TV and movie sets, at Tiffany & Co. and Bloomingdales and eventually to her own exhibited paintings.Ms. Rabenâ€s turn to writing earned her an eight poem debut in the prestigious American Poetry Review. She lives with her husband Henry Eckstein in New York City.Contact the author ToniRaben@Hotmail.com orGo to her website at www.toniraben.org

Ever since Toni Raben's poetry debuted in the American Poetry Review, it was clear that a dramatic and original new voice had arrived. In Terracotta Smoke, an absorbing and powerful volume of her finest work to date, Ms. Raben puts forth relentlessly vivid and haunting poems, eschewing the familiar for more daringly coiled takes on the shrouded pangs and pleasures that pulse deep within the human psyche. Ms. Raben's poetry will bring to mind the expressive musical journeys explored by many of the more adventurous jazz artists of decades past. They referred then to a place - more a state of mind - called The Big Room, wherein the music was stretched to the limits of melody, chord changes and rhythmic shifts that pressed the imagination to imagistic heights. Toni Raben brings to her poetic Big Room Terracotta Smoke, and those drawn in will be captivated. Cover Art by: Alan Dick