The Color of Goodbye

The Color of Goodbye is the sensitively told story of four characters-the poet daughter, the enduring mother, the war-damaged father, and Jim Beam. With compassion and beauty, Pattie Palmer-Baker offers us the saga of her parents which is, in some ways, the story of an American generation. As you read these poems, grieve and appreciate.-Penelope Scambly Schott, Winner of the Oregon Book Award and Author of On Dufur Hill

In Pattie Palmer-Baker’s The Color of Goodbye , we discover new, hard colors that appear with spirits all their own, and then we learn hard truths. What stuns in this sequence, in the echo of image and braiding of keen obsession, is how the poems refuse to back down in their relentless drive to make meaning where there can be none. The voice of these poems isn’t asking for sympathy, just a witness. Follow the colors, and you will be that witness.

-John Morrison, Winner of the Rhea & Seymour Gorsline Poetry Competition, Finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and Author of Monkey Island