08/15/2025
Getting ready to print the latest book from COLD RIVER PRESS:
OUR VARIOUS SELVES - a collection of poetry from Linda Blaskey, Jim Bourey, Jack Mackey, and Isabelle Bohl. 94pp + Soft Cover, 6"x9"
A special pre-sale is available until 9/15/25 - $15 + FREE shipping within the Continental United States (normally $18.95 + $5 shipping)
www.coldriverpress.com
I believe farmers like Linda Blaskey make the best teachers—they provide while helping us see the benefits of being both multi-talented and resourceful—the best teachers train us all to observe, to research and to document and to follow through. It’s the warmth of familiarity that is being provided here—we get the poems from Linda and her dear friends Jack, Isabelle and Jim because collectively they certainly get all of us.
Rob Greene, founder and publisher of Raleigh Review
This volume collects the works of four exceptional poets whose voices are all dynamic and distinctive. In truly original ways, these poets illuminate the most vital of subjects: nature and self-awareness; the joys, challenges, and losses within all human bonds; how the past enlivens us as a continuous presence. Each poet finds beauty and poignancy in their experiences, expressing them through cadences of insight and trust—in their discoveries and ours—and always with an honesty whose edges remain unmistakable.
Donald McNutt, Editor Emeritus Blueline Magazine
Four beautifully different voices in one rich volume: Linda Blaskey’s elegant poems speak how the world calls us back from the dark—pastoral, but never pastel. Jack Mackey’s poems live in the bruised and bruising world--poems of steady, loving witness. Isabelle Bohl’s poems think their way through complex questions, anchored in images from the natural world which often intersect in surprising ways with the human-made. Jim Bourey’s poems are maps for understanding that, though we age, we change, and we lose, we fill our hearts and carry light with us.
Devon Miller-Duggan, Author of The Slow Salute
Four esteemed poets, each with a unique voice, celebrate their diversity and craft in this stunning collaboration. Through vivid imagery, incisive language, and a willingness to take risks, they explore the ironies of aging, a mother’s difficult pregnancy during World War II, the sudden death of a child, a dissolving marriage and the vagaries of the natural world. No matter who you are, you will find yourself in this superb collection.
Irene Fick, Author, The Fragility of Winter
Linda Blaskey, recipient of the 2022 Masters Fellowship in Poetry from Delaware Division of the Arts, is past coordinator for Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, past poetry/interview editor for Broadkilll Review, and current editor of Quartet, an online poetry journal for women fifty and over. She is the author of the prizewinning chapbook Farm, full-length collection White Horses, and co-author of Walking the Sunken Boards, and Season of Harvest. Her work was included in Best New Poets 2014. She lives on a small horse and goat farm in southern Delaware with her husband, twelve cats, and a dog.
Jack Mackey grew up in New York and earned his M.A. in English from the University of Maryland. His first book of poems, Up, Out & Over (Kelsay Books) was published in 2024 and won first prize from the Delaware Press Association. Jack was awarded a fellowship in poetry by the Delaware Division of the Arts and was selected for the Disquiet International literary program in Lisbon, Portugal. Individual poems have appeared in Gargoyle, Third Wednesday, Broadkill Review, Impostor, Anti-Heroin Chic, Mobius, and other literary publications. Jack lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and Wilton Manors, Florida.
Isabelle Bohl was born and raised in France. She attended college in the US where she studied Biology and Linguistics. After teaching English as a Second language in Virginia, she retired to the Northern Adirondacks, where she began writing poetry. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in journals such as Glassworks, Quartet, and Rat’s Ass Review. Her poems can also be found in anthologies (Voices 2024 and Voices 2025, Cold River Press, and others). She now lives in the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
jim bourey is a poet from the northern edge of the Adirondacks. His collection, Out There and Back Again, from Cold River Press, was released in April 2023. His previous book, The Distance Between Us, was also published by Cold River Press in 2020. In 2022, Season of Harvest, a collaborative collection with noted poet Linda Blaskey, was published by Pond Road Press. jim’s first book was a chapbook called Silence, Interrupted, published by Broadkill River Press in 2015. His work has also appeared in many journals and anthologies, and he is a contributing editor for the Broadkill Review. Currently jim is the organizer of many poetry events in northern New York. And he can still be found reading aloud in dimly lit rooms. jim lives in Dickinson Center, NY with his wife Linda, who has provided photographs for many of jim’s projects.
