Anne Tammel, author of the bestselling collection, Endless: A Literate Passion (Saint Julian Press, 2015), which made its debut as the number one new release in both Love Poetry and Poetry About Places, lives in a house by the sea, writing books about women who travel to faraway, exotic, watery places and become lost.
Tammel is founding owner and executive editor of Poets and Dreamers, the literary & fine arts network featured in CBS Los Angeles. When not writing, Tammel, a Silicon Valley native, serves as chief strategy officer for brand strategy firm Tammel Enterprises. A 2016 Bread Loaf in Sicily participant and member of the 2016 Writer’s Hotel staff in New York City, Anne is currently at work on a series of literary suspense novels about Isa, a writer transformed by her need to solve the mysteries of missing women.
Tammel’s fiction and poems have appeared in literary publications throughout America and Europe. Recent publications include Poydras Review, Philadelphia Review of Books, 3Elements Literary Review, Annapurna, Clarify Culinary Anthology, Mediterranean Poetry, Edgar Allen Poet Literary Journal, Sisters Born Sisters Found, Life and Legends, and many more.
An inspiring speaker and interactive workshop leader, Anne’s is currently setting 2017 dates for author panels, signing events, brand strategy presentations, and book clubs.
Contact Anne at: www.annetammel.com
Open Endless and Drift Away to Exotic Ports …
Turn the ivory pages of Endless: A Literate Passion and find yourself at the mysterious Red Sea, the exotic Mediterranean, the rainy streets of Paris, Manhattan on lonely days–and pulled into the secret lives and loves of Anais Nin, Amelia Earhart, Zelda Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Celan…
Romantic figures come to life and dance through the pages of these imaginary narratives. What happened to Anais Nin after she fled her secret Parisian affair with Henry Miller? And Zelda Fitzgerald once she stepped out of the Golden Girl limelight and the glitterati to leave her husband and Europe then struggle with a descent into madness? And Amelia Earhart on that final round-the-globe flight after she dipped her toes into the waters of mystery then started to discover who she actually was…
With exquisite cover art by Eric Anfinson, Endless is a must for lovers of travel, of passion, of words, and of transformation…
Artist Eric Anfinson, creator of Anais and Henry, explains: “Anne’s writing is intimate, tactile, rhythmic and vast…I found myself taken to many places and into different periods of time…The image is a sensual, intimate mirror of the way Endless moved me…”
About Anais & Henry, Anfinson shares: “Henry Miller is focused on the lady in red dress, a combination of Anne Tammel and Anais Nin…Passion corners us, and yet we yearn to be there…The balcony, the space of their relationship, is surrounded by beauty and perils…Miller is seated…with the silk red journal between them, ‘and red silk journals are covered in sweat and secrets…‘ Water, sky, and land allow for the endless waves, sky, and travel, and also represent the emotions, conscious, and unconsciousness of our lives…”
Praise for Endless: A Literate Passion“ENDLESS reads like a love letter…I feel I’m inside a museum of daring sculptures, a Grecian sun glinting off the bone white marble. The collection–voluptuous, its rhythms searching, sensual, and authentic ‘like a wife–an insatiable wife…a lover of silk…and words…and your breath,‘ finding the authentic voice within the poet’s internal theater. I slipped easily into these literary shoes to stride confidently across the stage…”
~ Lois P. Jones, Kyoto Journal
“ENDLESS is a mantic book, the handiwork of a sorceress and magicienne, of one whose gifts with language and perception transform the sublunary and timely into pictures of dynamic affect…to put the collection aside is suddenly to see a landscape in a new light where grey and white are perpetually moving but without invention or causality. It is refreshing and rare to read such flawless poetry. Hence, ENDLESS is an object I return to frequently and continue to keep with me.”
~ Kevin McGrath, Harvard University
“Moving page by page through the red silk journals of the heart, Anne Tammel takes the reader on a journey through a historical and literary landscape so vibrant, so vividly and generously splashed with color and love that it could only be explored through poetry. Here is a woman, who, much like the great artists about whom she writes, not only looks at the world with extraordinary, resplendent vision, but who has the courage and talent to offer that vision to the world.”
~ Melissa Studdard, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast
More reviews:
- www.prachyareview.com/book-review-by-omer-tarin/
- www.commonlinejournal.com/2015/10/review-of-anne-tammels-endless-literary.html
- annetammel.tumblr.com/post/144480889763/conversation-with-the-author-amelia-earhart-at
Endless: A Literate Passion can be purchased at:
POEMS FROM Endless: A Literate Passion
Its rocks jut out to sea;
forgotten blend of
land, dark salt, and
the bones
of those forgotten
washed
ashore—
their egos like
minions
that rush to rocks
then recede. Short
lived, vibrant—so
transitory.
I wonder
on this small jut of an island, its rocky
bit of land that reaches out to an
endless sea, why I was called.
This end of the
world—of a place, where one
could easily be dismissed, their own
life a minion or minnow, sad
swimming fish with
one tail, lost sight
of its pack;
the tourists swim in Speedos. They
hike with backpacks, wonder
as they pass
at the fateful symmetry of tortured isles:
they search for wood, dark currants, lost
ore. They ask: Will the gods awaken—cast
stones like Talos, spit
bronze, and fire
in all directions?
Those tourists march further up that
hill, swim in sun, sunbathe on flat
rocks, board boats to island shacks, share
beer, fresh fish reeled wildly from seas on
rusted wires; the beer, the fish, the seas—it
is all transparent, those swimming waters
that buried millions. The tourists laugh;
they swim back home, hear mystical
Minoan chimes at night; think volcanic
ash. They taste it on their lips in dreams.
They dream at times of being fish—those
scattered minnows washed ashore—their
scintillating fins splash ruefully as
water turns.
I sit as sun rushes down, wonder
as water rushes toward my ankles:
Why was I called?
Asking only for air, amassed in layers
of clouded memories, I ask again, why
must I return to watch
those bronze
cascading
stones…
Paradiso
Eros & Psyche
we swept in summer nights, lie still
when love was sublime and reachable
as the pale green sky above that ocean’s
rim. when you engaged in song
i was your breath—your sleepless instrument
entwined with mine. exhaling was like
singing; rang in tune with dew on
our lips and your sinewy desire
enveloping mine, invented for your
touch. like flower petals, we cried
at morning light breaking through
to day, to tell the world
—we lost as much in love—
as they, in death.
Gates of Paradise
Polythene Wings
I walk a lonely winding Italian
road. Late summer sun falls; colors
drift on wind. Night air dries. Plums
fall from branches, grapes ripen on
vines. I used to dream of downtown,
in San Jose—find Anaïs Nin
books, sit and write, dream of days
like this. And yet on days like this I
dream of why I woke wishing for
a darkening street in Italy, robed in sun,
creating songs in the rough Florentine
earth. Bodies upon bodies ascended
there, angels waiting to slip through
Gates of Paradise—lovers who lost
and loved, lived, ate, and wept at those
gates, hoping to catch one
glimpse of heaven, listening
for chimes. Waiting, singing at
those gates, writing at those gates…
I fill my house with amber lights: wait
for the polythene feel—wings of angels
behind me. Fill my head with flights
each day, a trip to Florentine heaven,
like the scribes who pored hour after
hour over handcrafted paper, bled ink
from pomegranates, thistle milk, indigo,
cloves, lit by paling tallow candles.
Men have sung on those steps. I have
dreamt on them—that lonely sun
illuminating the burning eternal
progress in the distance. In some
ways, Florence speaks like no
other city—Florence will always call—
invoke sounds of the spirit,
welcome those who wait, wide-eyed
at those gates, for one glimpse of an
angel on new polythene wings,
one lonely soul preparing
to make its solitary passage…
For other contributions by Anne Tammel, please follow the links below:
All poetry in this post: © Anne Tammel
Published with the permission of Anne Tammel