Praise for Light Spilling From Its Own Cup

“Holaday Mason paints a world pulsing with signs of life, but which is nevertheless poised there, all dressed up, ready to go somewhere else. Wisconsin is still in cryogenic suspension even though the muddy doors and fenders in the cover photo clearly indicate the long hard Winter has turned to Spring. I suspect Grandma, Mom and Holaday are all three in the snapshot, just looking for someone to wash that car. This poetry is like an autobiographical photo album: a vignette here, a slightly out of focus shot there: all to remember you by. Oops! They ran out of film at the wedding reception. But don't worry: there's a poem in that too, so it's not really lost. Holaday practices transcendental synaesthasia: ‘the dead are so hungry this time of the year/ for the taste of our memories.’ ‘I have ghosts in my limbs./ Pass blckberry blood./ Blacker each month as slivers/ of possibility vanish.’ There's a warm, yet poignant nostalgia in these finely crafted poems. And love, all kinds of love.”
—Pat Cohee