This week’s guest blogger here at Unstressed is Lola Haskins, who regular readers will remember as the author of both “The Gift” and “To ******* from the Residents of Point Reyes.”

Lola’s ninth collection of poems, Still the Mountain, is forthcoming (Paper Kite Press, 2010). Desire Lines, New and Selected Poems (BOA) appeared in 2004 and The Rim Benders (Anhinga) came out in 2001.  Two prose books appeared in 2007:  Not Feathers Yet: A Beginner’s Guide to the Poetic Life (Backwaters Press), and Solutions Beginning with A, fables about women, with images by Maggie Taylor (Modernbook).

Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, The London Review of Boooks, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, Green Mountains Review, and The New York Quarterly.  She adores radio—her work has been broadcast on BBC and NPR—and also particularly relishes collaboration. She has worked with dancers (playing Mata Hari in a full-length ballet whose script she wrote and pseudo-Cindy Sherman in a modern dance piece whose words she also scripted; with musicians (Paul Richards is setting her Forty Four Ambitions for the Piano) with and visual artists (currently collaborating with South Florida painter Derek Gores on a piece due in January, 2010.)

Her most recent collaboration was “Of Air and the Water,” done on Gainesville’s Hippodrome main stage with dance and cello. Lately, she has been writing poems set in the natural world. Her new ambition is to be Florida’s ecstatic nature poet. For more information, please see her website.