Still Life

In Still Life, Annabelle Moseley, a poet of great sensitivity, probes the shared experience of two people attuned to each other’s art – one who paints through her words and voice, the other a visual artist aware of light, shadow, and hue.  These poems pay homage to a person of large heart, Atilla Hejja, who is suddenly gone.  They capture in their sublety (a nuance reflected even in the title of the collection) the emotions evoked by that loss.  However, in their remembrance of that sharing, the poems in Still Life become more than a lament, but also a healing.  “Teacher, the dark and light have found their place within my art – grief side by side with grace.”
– Richard Bronson

Listen, the blues are singing the eyes of a poet learning to see like a painter sees what is, what changes, what remains – the power of art at work on many levels: taut tensions of restraint, painterly strophes curving, avowing what remains live still!  A fine tribute!
– Graham Everett

Is poetry, at its zenith, noting more than silent prayer?  In Annabelle Moseley’s new chapbook, Still Life, it’s what many of Miss Moseley’s elegant poems feel like; for these poems are deeply religious, sacred in context by continually investigating the kernel which intrigues and ignites generosity of the visual artist’s spirit in the creation of his or her work on canvas.  Miss Moseley’s poems capture the journey of eye, hand, and heart of the artist through her own undertaking of paint-to-canvas, and then her impressions of Bellini, Rubens, Vermeer, Harold Stevenson, and Attila Hejja.  There are reflective poems as well as poems dedicated to the late Mr. Hejja (Miss Moseley’s former art teacher.  He was a great man.)  It was wonderful reading such a bright collection of poetry weighted with so much wisdom, warmth, and worth.  And the poems’ titles in Still Life–you’ll find–are as fascinating as the poems themselves!
– Denis Jules Gray

Who could resist reading a book of poetry that honors those mentors who have opened the doors to the unexplored, who have shown us a new way of seeing, placed our lives on the passageway to our own creative expression?  Annabelle Moseley’s new book, Still Life, speaks of the connection between student and teacher, pays homage to the power of lessons learned.  This book of poems is a superbly nuanced meditation on loss and healing.
– Gladys Henderson

Any apprenticeship is a study.  Ms. Moseley makes hers into a series of sharp, sometimes brilliant sonnets, a form well-suited to her uncommonly serious way.
– Allen Planz

ISBN: 9780935252800