New Release: Beginning at the Left by Peter Siedlecki
BlazeVOX [books] is honored to publish Beginning at the Left, a luminous new collection from Peter Siedlecki—poet, professor, and long-time voice of insight and wit in Western New York’s literary community.
This collection is a quietly searing meditation on language, memory, and the fractured beauty of human experience. With precision and grace, Siedlecki traces how identity is shaped through words, rituals, artifacts, and dreams. From childhood recollections and familial grief to the surreal echoes of historical conscience, his poems remind us that meaning is always just beyond reach—and yet urgently worth pursuing.
Blending wit with philosophical depth, Siedlecki explores how we inherit our voices, how language both reveals and fails us, and how the past—personal and collective—clings to the edges of our perception. A single floating leaf, a spider in the shower, a rusted bag of old sporting gear: each detail becomes a metaphor for the distances we traverse to understand ourselves and each other.
Critics and fellow poets praise the book’s rare combination of intellectual rigor and quiet wonder:
“This is a moving account of one’s being alive in the world, if only temporarily. I loved it!” —Carole Southwood
“Best of all, two love-in-old-age lyrics (‘December’ and ‘Today’s Love Poem’) will melt your heart…with their uncanny blend of disillusion, grateful affection, vulnerability, thoughtfulness, rue, and quiet hope.” —Max Wickert
“From biopsied skin cells to a population facing the wrath of pandemic, each poem begins in contemplation and marvels at the bright light of language and its infinite discoveries.” —Jennifer Campbell
At once elegy and inquiry, Beginning at the Left is a book that listens hard and speaks with renewed intention. It asks us to pause, to look again, and to recognize how poetry can illuminate both the intimacy of daily life and the enormity of history.
About the Author
Peter Siedlecki is Professor Emeritus of English and Poet in Residence at Daemen University. He has taught and lectured widely, including as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in literature at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. He has coordinated the Readings at the RIC poetry series and served as director of the Catherine Burchfield Parker artist salon. Beyond literature, Siedlecki has been deeply engaged in music, from his days with the 1970s folk group The Circle to his present singing with the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus and Calvary Episcopal Church Choir.
📖 Beginning at the Left
· Paperback: 74 pages
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-512-0
· Price: $18
Available now: Order from BlazeVOX
