Lesley Clinton Published by Finishing Line Press

It is with great pleasure to announce that Strake Jesuit English faculty member Lesley Clinton has been published by Finishing Line Press. Calling the Garden from the Grave, her debut poetry chapbook, is now available for advance sale. Her poems explore our restless human yearnings and spiritual endurance. She offers a sacramental view of the world informed by her Catholic faith.
 
From Kim Bridgford, the late Editor-in-Chief of Mezzo Cammin: “Leslely Clinton’s Calling the Garden from the Grave is a book of paradoxes, and of wishes. Opposites attract, Clinton might say: with magic, the ‘churning salt-breeze / of elsewhere.’ I was delighted to see so much range and surprise. This is a chapbook to be read and savored.”
 
Catholic Literary Arts President and Founder Sarah Cortez says, “This slender volume utilizes language to uniquely stamp this writer’s vocation, her multi-faceted ‘calling.’ Reading these poems becomes a joyful reminder of St. John Paul II’s Letter to Artists (1999) as he acknowledged the sacred tasks of arts ‘as [they] are led all the more to see themselves and the whole of creation with eyes able to contemplate and give thanks, and to raise to God a hymn of praise.’ With poet Lesley Clinton, let us ‘Lie in wait for the spark to land, / and tense for the bright reply.”
 
Lesley is very active in the poetry community in Houston. She is a founding member of the Catholic Poetry Society of Houston and has won awards from the Poetry Society of Texas and Press Women of Texas. Last October, she received the Lucille Jackson Clark Memorial Award, given to the Houston Poetry Festival’s high ranked K-12 classroom teacher. Her poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous publications including The Windhover, Mezzo Cammin, America Magazine, Ever Eden, Texas Poetry Calendar, Sakura Review, Literary Mama, Euphony Journal, Gulf Stream Magazine, and By the Light of a Neon Moon. In addition to teaching English at Strake Jesuit, she also serves as a Board Member of Catholic Literary Arts.
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