This is a small package of elegant, intimate poems which deepen the feelings we all have for our families, the Earth and whoever else comes to find solace in the words Royce gratefully saved for us to read. Jeff Royce is a poet, visual artist, and educator who lives and teaches in South Florida. A lifelong Floridian, he attended the University of Florida and the University of Tampa, from which he graduated as a UT Writing Scholar. While in Tampa, Jeff was nominated for The Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lily Poetry Fellowship, and was fortunate enough to have befriended and learned from the late poet, painter and provocateur, Duane Locke, founder and advocate of the Immanentist Movement in poetry and the visual arts. Over the last 25 years, Jeff has written numerous poems, some of which can be found in such places as The Bitter Oleander: A Magazine of Contemporary International Poetry & Letters and NYU and Drexel University’s Painted Bride Quarterly or heard discussed on such platforms as The Slushpile Podcast (episode 91: Daydream Believer.) His long-overdue first book, Angel Trumpets, was the winner of the 2024 Bitter Oleander Library of Poetry Award. "Winter's Upon Us" Morning holds it’s broken arm, brings shutters to my eyes. My hands, two panthers, asleep and cold. I feel nothing for the strong-faced girl, who in her purse hides decimal points, nor for the kid with the folded newspaper hat whose flashcards are full of obituaries. I feel nothing, and my hands, like frozen panthers, sleep. I want them awake and full of blood to drag my bones through a grove of oaks.