Linda Blaskey, Gail Braune Comorat, Wendy Elizabeth Ingersoll, and Jane C. Miller have this to say, by way of preface, about their group activity as poets who come together twice a year at Ingersoll's old family farm to share their writing, talk, critiques and togetherness on long weekends.
"The cover photo of Walking the Sunken Boards is of Betsy Ingersoll, Wendy's mother, in 1944, posed in front of the small farmhouse she and Wendy's dad, Gil, built at Shipping Creek Farm, their property on the Chester River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Over the years since, the house has been expanded and revised to take full advantage of its 360 degree view of river, cove, fields, meadows, orchard, and creek.
"For the last few years we four poetry-writing friends have met there biannually for a long weekend: writing, reading, revising, giving feedback, doing poetry-exercises, taking long walks, lying in the hammock, gossiping, eating, and laughing. We call the house and our weekend there The Muse. And when we are not in residence, we are looking forward to our next gathering.
"Walking the Sunken Boards is a compilation of poems written by the four of us, all of which were begun, revised, and/or finished at The Muse. The house is what holds us to look out and look in."
The result of their efforts together, Walking the Sunken Boards, is a group book that reads not like an anthology, but like what it is: a book by one entity, they themselves, together. This is a special achievement that could never have been planned ahead of time, but happened naturally over the course of their many years together.