2013, 88 pages
ISBN 978-0-932716-80-4
DESCRIPTION
Composed in a hybrid form that braids personal narrative with philosophical reflections, 7 Days and Nights in the Desert (Tracing the Origin) by Sabrina Dalla Valle ponders the complexities of human communication and perception by time-traveling from the historical present to the ancient past through the reverberating voices of the oldest known thinkers. Along the way, it reaches out to mirrored existences that are as fathomless as the infinitesimal connections between our cells. In her desert journal, philosopher’s notes take the form of old chants and tales that emerge anew as thought-scapes embodying a timeless ritual of gazing at the gods.
Winner of the 2013 Kelsey Street Press FIRSTS! Contest, judged by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, 7 Days and Nights in the Desert (Tracing the Origin) by Sabrina Dalla Valle inaugurates a series of first books by emerging writers. In this series, Kelsey Street Press continues to link its editorial policy of addressing the marginalization of women writers to a poetics of allowance that encourages women to write directly from their own creative imperatives.
BIOGRAPHY
Sabrina Dalla Valle received her BA in Anthropology from Reed College and her MFA in Writing and Consciousness from New College of California in San Francisco. Her writing has been anthologized in The Best of Kore Press 2012 Poems (Kore Press, 2013), in Alchemical Traditions (Numen Books, 2013), and has appeared in numerous journals including New York Quarterly, Gently Read Literature, Caketrain, and jmww. Her first full-length book, 7 Days and Nights in the Desert (Tracing the Origin), was selected by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge as the innaugural winner of the Kelsey Street Press FIRSTS! contest. Sabrina lives in Los Angeles where she teaches writing and consciousness studies at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Feliz (Hollywood).
