<p><strong>Praise for <em>Ravenous Bliss: New and Selected Love Poems</em></strong></p><p>&ldquo;Beginning with &lsquo;the whirr of the sewing machine&rsquo; and ending with &lsquo;the shining thread to join all small and large lives,&rsquo; <em>Ravenous Bliss</em> is a meditation on love in its many incarnations. These poems are full of resonant, natural images and shine with James Bertolino&rsquo;s big open heart.&rdquo;</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ~ Ellen Bass, author of <em>Mules of Love</em> and <em>The Human Line</em></p><p>&ldquo;For more than four decades, James Bertolino has been writing love poems, poems of bliss so musical and urgent, so nuanced and bold, they&rsquo;re ravenously ecstatic. These love poems &lsquo;&hellip;draw nectar/ from the fractures&hellip;.&rsquo;&nbsp; They join &lsquo;&hellip;all small and large lives with what lifts/ us toward the sun&hellip;.&rsquo; What a boon to have Bertolino&rsquo;s love poems&mdash;both selected and new&mdash;in this one luminous collection.&rdquo;</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ~ Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate and author of <em>Understory</em></p><p>and <em>The Voluptuary</em></p>