It is time...

My new chapbook NO THIRD THING is available for pre-order.  I need a certain amount of orders to qualify for a press run.  Please help by ordering now.  Because my publisher is a small press, they depend on authors to promote sales.  Thank you for your generous support, dear friends.  

Click on this LINK to place your order.  Books ship October 9, 2015.

If Whitman's poems "celebrate" and Dickinson's "interrogate," the verb I associate with Tess Kincaid's beautiful lines is "billow― the poems start small, and before you know it, they're crackling like storms. Let lightning spit fire, let rain spray! said Shakespeare, and that's exactly what happens here.

David Kirby

Tess Kincaid's poetry has a touch of not only intimacy but of immediacy.  Her eye, her insight, miss little if anything. She has perfected a succinct style that reveals an experience as it happens, as it gathers meaning. These twenty-six poems evoke a web of discoveries, the way a life is lived, the metaphors of a poet's many lives poured into the reader's own. Ms. Kincaid's work offers a glimpse into the digital age, as well as into our enduring, more common condition.

Floyce Alexander

In No Third Thing Tess Kincaid goes "to the edge,/to the door between either and or" and her poems pull us right along with her.  It's a journey worth taking.  This is Kincaid's third publication and her best one yet.

Eva Tihanyi

It's ready!

I'm very excited to announce my second 26-page poetry chapbook is now available to purchase from Finishing Line Press. The most thrilling news about this second collection, is that a studio-recorded audio version will be made by the most talented R.A.D. Stainforth.  The CDs will be available to purchase at the time the books ship, March 1.

Finishing Line is a small press, and depends on authors to help promote their books. I have an advance sales period of approximately six weeks, before the pressrun is determined. If you are interested in purchasing a copy, please help me by doing so, as soon as possible, by clicking this link:

FINISHING LINE PRESS PRE-ORDER

Thank you, dear readers, for your most generous support of my work. Without your encouragement, none of this would be possible. You are the best.

RAD takes your words and makes them liquid.  ―ReBelle

Came back to listen to RAD's reading. This partnership is quite breathtaking!  ―Ninotaziz

I love hearing your work. Ronaldo Stainforth makes your magic ours.  ―Wendy Ellis

Like dragonflies that seem to materialize out of thin air to hover before us, each poem in Tess Kincaid’s brilliant second collection Unpressed is a slow-motion reveal of exquisitely realized imagery and electrically charged linguistic compression. Turning on the intimate moments of daily life, pulling us into a kinetic, often whimsical world, this is a book to savor and return to, best kept close at hand. 

―Jenne’ R. Andrews

Tess Kincaid's poems are delicious little morsels full of elemental observations and uncluttered declarations of love. Unpressed is a collection to savor and re-read to discover all its understated pleasures. 

―Collin Kelley

A consummate & compelling collection, Unpressed is both internally intensive and existentially, extensively profound.  In communion with a mistress of the poetic medium, I felt at the mercy of a potent imagination that never failed to deliver an incredibly intuitive and inspired expression.

―Seán McGrady

Big News

unpressed/ʌnˈprɛst/ 
▶adjective

• 1. not squeezed or obtained by pressure

• 2. unironed
• 
  

There's some fun news at Willow Manor! Finishing Line Press has agreed to publish my second 26-page chapbook!  This collection of love poems is titled Unpressed, and will be available to purchase later this year. I'll be sure to keep you posted on the details.

The funny thing is, not too long ago, I didn't even know what a chapbook was.  I timidly posted my very first poem here at Willow Manor in July 2008, and not only were no rotten vegetables tossed my direction, you actually encouraged me to write more. Thank you, dear, dear readers for your most kind, faithful encouragement and support. This wouldn't be possible without you, my friends. You are the best. I know, I always say it, but you really are.

really BIG news

(chăp'bʊk') 
n.
A small book or pamphlet containing poems, ballads, stories, or religious tracts.
[CHAP(MAN) + BOOK (so called because it was originally sold by chapmen).]

I must admit, a year ago, when my dear friend Elizabeth Wix suggested I publish a chapbook, I was such a novice, I actually had to Google the word.  The term chapbook was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera (disposable, cheaply printed material), popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, poetry, nursery rhymes, folk tales, children's literature and almanacs. The term is derived from "chapman", a variety of peddler, who circulated such literature as part of his stock.

The big, big news at the manor is I've been chosen as a semi-finalist in The Finishing Line Press 2010 Open Chapbook competition! (The first place winner will be announced later this spring.)  This means they have agreed to publish my 26 page chapbook, assign an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), and it will be available to purchase on Amazon. Heavens to murgatroyd!  This is my very first submission to a poetry competition, and since I had heard nothing since I sent in my manuscript back in June, I was convinced it was a total wash. I am stunned and elated, to say the least. Stay tuned for upcoming book info this spring.  In the meantime, please help yourself to a glass of cyber champagne. A huge thank you to all my faithful readers who have been such an enormous encouragement along the way. You are the best. I could not have done it without you, sweet people.