Publications
Versus Verses - Poems
ISBN 978-0-615-23971-2
River Rat Press
PO Box 147
Frenchtown, NJ 08825
Praise for Versus Verses
“Some of the best, most powerful (and empowering) original poems about emotional and physical abuse I have ever read. It is not an uncommon (believe it or not) subject and it has to be done without sentimentality or self-pity for it to work. This Van Saun has done triumphantly! I will never forget the poem “Great Lengths” – it should be put up on the wall of every battered woman’s shelter, every police station, on the desk of every judge who grants or rescinds a restraining order!”
-Thomas Lux
“Skye Van Saun is a fierce, uncompromising witness. Her poems of endurance come from a whole, healed place, where fear and loss are alchemized into wisdom. The poems in the collection Versus Verses are artfully crafted and honest to the core. Among many favorites, “Gathering Evidence,” “Object Permanence,” ”Widow's Benefits,” and “Great Lengths” are examples of Van Saun's exactness in observing nuances of physical and psychological experience. I love her dark wit in “The Allure,” “Lesson Plan,” and “Hand to Mouth,” and the humility and gratitude of “Lifeline.” The emotional impact of Van Saun’s compression and thrift moves me. She is a poet of understated power and grace, whose writing serves not only her own survival but that of others.”
-Joan Larkin
Submerged – Tales From the Basin: “Hide Nor Hair” – Pushcart Prize nomination
L. Gonzalez & L. Jordan, StepSister Press, 2008
ISBN 978-0-9802300-2-4
Lumina, spring 2006: “Object Permanence”