"She takes readers beyond the corporeal, fleshy narrative, slipping instead into the availability of relationships found in the finery of her subconscious. She truly mirrors the unbound artist in us all, cutting us loose in a conceptual installation of weaving verse."
-Sonja Horoshko, visual artist and writer
Chapbooks Anthologies Artist Books
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“Illustrious for Brief Moments,” Finishing Line Press (2021) $20
“Art is healing, it has been said, poetry is healing. And when times are as dark as these, poetry, words that are spun from a kind heart and woven from keen sight and caring, create beauty that is especially healing, for to name the dark and treat it with delicacy and grace is a comfort and a gift. Renee Podunovich‘s Illustrious for Brief Moments (and what moments are not brief?) is an acknowledgement and a celebration of both the dark and the light, of both the doubts and the certainties that moment by moment make our lives. We need such art.” -Rafael Jesús González, Poet Laureate, City of Berkeley, California
“Step between the lines of Renee Podunovich’s “Illustrious for Brief Moments” and you descend with the poet’s heart, the poet’s art to become undone, undone, and undone again until there is nothing left to undo. Renee calls us to the pulse of stars and deer, trees, stone, birds, shadow, waters, flesh and blood where we attend, we journey immense moments, we strike bone. Her work is of the deft dreamer casting a sensuous alchemy, yet you may trust her to finally deliver you “…unbound, whole, tender in the mending.” Go here now.” -Cassandra Leoncini, Scrivener, Astro-Ceremonialist
"LET THE SCAFFOLDING COLLAPSE”, Finishing Line Press (2012) $20.00
“These are poems of thirst and hunger, more hiss than hush, more jazz, more blaze, more pluck. Renee Podunovich has a ferociousness to her work that pulls us in and pushes us to step outside what is comfortable into the world that is charged and changing.” -Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The Miracle Already Happening and Holding Three Things at Once
“Renee Podunovich excels in her newest collection. The journey through these evocative vignettes leads us to the powerful understanding that we need to “Trust the empty spaces” and “let the scaffolding collapse.” The characters in each poem reflect our own Divine Human Experience, and Podunovich treats our vulnerabilities with tenderness and wise insight.” -Robin Stratton, Editor, Boston Literary Magazine, author On Air and Then She Ran
"IF THERE IS A CENTER", Art Juice Press (2008) First Edition $25.00
Note: This book is currently Out of Print. Maybe a second edition will be forthcoming. A few are out there still in global distribution and e-bay sellers.
"In this collection of poems, Renee Podunovich's visions are transparent panes allowing the reader the warmth and light of a larger view. She returns from journeys beyond the daily world with medicine which explodes in us 'with no limits, other than the filter of our hearts'. Her passionate words form conduits through which we can meet our higher selves." -Cynthia West, author, Rainbringer and The New Sun.
“If There is a Center is Podunovich’s debut collection that takes readers beyond the corporeal, fleshy narrative, slipping instead into the availability of relationships found in the finery of her subconscious. She truly mirrors the unbound artist in us all, snaps us back into hyper-reality by looking just beyond the edge of the scene where she sees a slight movement in the shadows. Fearlessly, Renee constructs meaning from the vapors of her heart using firm language while aligning syntax, line breaks and precise metaphor to cut us loose in a conceptual installation of weaving verse.” -Sonja Horoshko, artist, writer
"Fertile: Anthology of Poems and Prose from the High Desert and Mountains of the Four Corners Region", Fourth Corner Press (2023) $35
“In many origin stories the concept of “word,” or “language,” is synonymous with creation. Formulating thoughts and expressing them through words reveals an entire universe of belief, place, and spirit. Language is power. FERTILE is a collective narrative of exceptional southwest contemporary authors examining the complex inspiration and influence our home planet transmits through human life. It replicates the inclusivity of the first book, WET. This second volume invites the authors to reach into Earth- surface, mantel, core and exosphere, and share personal stories with you, including many first languages, Dine, Nuchu, Hopi, Zuni and Mvskoke used by indigenous writers.” - Rebecca Levy, Fourth Corner Press, Cortez Cultural Center
"Wet: An anthology of poems and prose from the high desert and mountains of the four corners region", Share house Press (2021) $35
“Our invitation brought thirty writers to the edge of the well. Look deeply, we said, into the experience of water as a living entity. We asked them to stir memory, to summon the stories that lay quiet on the bottom. We asked them to take off their journalism hats, their political buttons, the causes and date many write about to survive. We asked the writers to put aside settlement papers, policies, water shares and the tally of straws in the Colorado River. And then we asked them to speak love to water, instead.” - Sonja Horoshko, Editor, Artist
"Paper wings" Artist Prints and Livre d’artiste by Podunovich & Horoshko (2020) $2200
Artist Prints and Artist Manuscripts in the Tradition of “Livre d’Artiste"
Referred to as the livre d’artiste, artist books differ from a traditional illustrated book in that each is an original work of art – woodcuts, lithographs, etchings etc., executed by the artist herself to accompany the writer’s work and printed under her supervision. Thus, the book contains original graphics of the kind that find their place on museum walls and results in a limited edition, numbered and signed by the artists.
We modeled our manuscript and the single, stand-alone prints after several historical sources. The 1944 publication, Pasiphaé Chant deMinow, by poet Henry de Montherlant paired his poems with 18 linoleum cut illustrations by Matisse. Following that, Matisse’s 1947 book, Jazz, used pochoir stencil technique instead of linoleum blocks to publish figurative cut paper illustrations in color. But Matisse did not invent this type of interest in publication arts. His efforts followed the tradition of art book publications such as the 1913, La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France, featuring a poem by Blaise Cendrars about a journey through Russia on the Trans-Siberian Express in 1905 during the first Russian Revolution. It is interlaced with printed illustrations by Sonia Delaunay-Terk. The work is considered a milestone in the evolution of artist’s books as well as modernist poetry and abstract art.
The Story of Paper Wings
A year-long, collaborative arts residency project at the Mancos Common Press studio was started by Renee Podunovich and Sonja Horoshko in 2019. The final letterpress project consists of twelve individual print runs, each with a poem and an illustration, and six hand-bound manuscripts that contain all twelve prints.
The collaboration was produced on renovated, historic platen presses. Each print includes a poem by Renee Podunovich, paired with linocut illustrations of drawings by Sonja Horoshko. Ten signed stand-alone individual prints and six signatures that were later handbound into a manuscript were created at each print run on Strathmore rag archival paper. These are offered for sale individually to collectors and the general public through various venues.
In the final step of the process, all six signatures were hand-bound into an 11” X 15” manuscript using the bookbinding technique learned in workshops taught by Durango artist, Mary Ellen Long. The technique is time-consuming, exacting, and beautiful. The process also requires a spacious, focused, contemplative environment with work tables available to both poet and illustrator working simultaneously in a concentrated block of time. This was generously provided by Peggy Cloy through a week-long artist residency at Willowtail Springs in Mancos CO.
Hear us talk about our project here!