Celestial Promise is the winner of the International Proverse Prize 2016 Supplementary Prize.In this collection of poetry, written over half a lifetime, Hayley Ann Solomon focuses primarily on the pursuit of excellence, immortality achieved through finite life, love in all its forms, and social justice. As it waxes and wanes, the collection cycles through sequences of lyrical ballads, sonnets, elegies, haiku, snippets of nonsensical verse; all blended with a substantial dose of existential philosophy and social comment. The collection covers a full spectrum, from the darkest psycho-social moments, to zeniths of absolute joy. The liberal use of consonance, assonance, alliteration, echoes and half-echoes, rhyme and cross-rhyme make for a style rich in sound-play. This, together with strong metrical awareness - very often iambic or trochaic pentameter and tetrameter - evokes a flow that is quite typically euphonic. There is therefore a sense of lyricism despite a broad diversity of topics and moods. The anthology evolves to become a promise of regeneration, in synchrony with the phases of the moon, from which it takes its celestial title. "In these poems Ms Solomon has recreated the world through her eyes.... [She] takes the reader on a safari through several manifestations of the human condition. ... [The] way ... is well lit ... by metaphorical moonlight along a lunar calendar which provides meticulous order to this meaningful journey."- Randal A. Burd, Jr., M.Ed."The poet is both romantic and scholar: inviting us to reflect on themes of transience and the cyclical nature of life: urging us to acknowledge the dark while reaching for the light."-Viki Holmes, author of miss moon's class (Chameleon Press, 2008), Girls' Adventure Stories of Long Ago (Chameleon Press, 2017) and co-editor of Not A Muse (Haven, 2009)."A spirited collection of poems."-Vaughan Rapatahana, Winner of the inaugural Proverse Poetry Prize.
About the Author: Hayley Ann Solomon double-majored in English and Psychology (UCT); later graduating with an Honours Baccalaureus Bibliothecologiae (UNISA); followed by a Master of Arts degree in Library and Information Science (University of Victoria, Wellington). She has had many fiction novels published internationally, the majority under the Zebra Regency Romance label, New York. She maintains a strong interest in poetic and literary genres, and her work has appeared in several short story anthologies, the most notable being the Momaya Press International Annual Short Story Reviews (2013 and 2015) and Horizons 2: Winning Stories from Page and Blackmore National Short Story Competitions (2015). Career highlights include the following: the choice of her novel, Raven's Ransom (2002), as "Top Pick" by the Romantic Times, her three times selection as Honoree for The Binnacle, University of Maine at Machias (2013-2014), being shortlisted for the Writers' Village International Short Fiction Award (2014); her selection by Compose Literary Journal for 'The Grasses are weeping' (2014;) and being placed first for 'The Chosen One' (New Zealand Society of Authors, Central Districts Competition 2015). She was also a finalist in the New Zealand Heritage Non Fiction Essay Award 2015. In 2016, she achieved Fanstory All time Best Award for her Awdl Gynt cycle poem 'I hardly have the means or heart'. Her ecological poem 'Once green, now gone and grown no more' won a place in Mingled Voices: The Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology 2016. Ms Solomon says poetry is a passion: she values the rich blend of cadence and cognition that makes poetry uniquely succinct, substantive and beautiful. Her family's interests represent the cycle of life itself. She represents literature, her surgeon husband healing, her three sons the futures in science, law and computer engineering respectively. She lives amid olive groves and vineyards in Blenheim, New Zealand. She's a bel canto soprano with vibrant pink hair and a strong belief in kindness. (Author biography provided by the author.)