Prayer to the Invisible

In her luminous 9th collection, Prayer to the Invisible, poet Diane Frank fully unmasks her wild and loving imagination. With a river‑deep range in subject matter and voice, Frank guides us through terrains both difficult and joyous - her Jewish mother’s love of Christmas carols, a grace‑filled visitation from a victim of ethnic violence, a ballerina‑in‑disguise on public transit, and many transcendent visions from dreams. Diane Frank is the wise and wonder‑struck, barefoot‑dancing companion we all long for in these precarious times.'- Prartho Sereno, Poet Laureate Emerita of Marin County, California Author of Starfall in the Temple Diane Frank is a poet and musician, author of nine books of poems, three novels, and a photo memoir of her 400 mile trek in the Nepal Himalayas. While Listening to the Enigma Variations: New and Selected Poems won the 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Poetry. She is editor of three bestselling anthologies: River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the Twenty-First Century; Fog and Light: San Francisco through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here; and Pandemic Puzzle Poems. Her first novel, Blackberries in the Dream House, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.Editoral Reviews: 'In her luminous 9th collection, Prayer to the Invisible, poet Diane Frank fully unmasks her wild and loving imagination. With a river‑deep range in subject matter and voice, Frank guides us through terrains both difficult and joyous - her Jewish mother’s love of Christmas carols, a grace‑filled visitation from a victim of ethnic violence, a ballerina‑in‑disguise on public transit, and many transcendent visions from dreams. Diane Frank is the wise and wonder‑struck, barefoot‑dancing companion we all long for in these precarious times.'- Prartho Sereno, Poet Laureate Emerita of Marin County, CaliforniaAuthor of Starfall in the Temple 'Diane Frank’s Prayer to the Invisible is a gorgeous book of poems that rings with truth and beauty. Frank weaves together dreamscape and imagination, earthly treasures and astronomical principles. Accompanied throughout by music as metaphor, these poems invite us to find solace and remind us that wonder exists alongside grief. Prayer to the Invisible reveals maps in the stars, helps us navigate tragedy, and invites us to find home within ourselves.'- Emilie Lygren, Poet & Outdoor EducatorAuthor of What We Were Born For 'In her new collection, Diane Frank relies on two of her most beloved motifs: dreams and music. She employs them as talismans against what her mother, a marvelous singer, calls (in my favorite poem) the mishegas - the craziness - of the world. In a touching tribute to her friend who was killed in the Tree of Life shooting, Frank says, ’Our prayers grow out of the shadow / of necessity.’ The shadow where, as Jung reminds us, the affirmations of dreams and music and poetry can contend against ever‑impending doom.- Thomas Centolella, Author of Almost Human'