Laura Foley is the author of, most recently, Sledding the Valley of the Shadow, and Ice Cream for Lunch. She's won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, Bisexual Book Award, and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence. She holds graduate degrees in Literature from Columbia University, and lives with her wife on the steep banks of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire.

Other poems by Laura Foley in Verse Daily:
February 4, 2024:   "Year End" "I want to bury him..."
January 13, 2018:   "Where There Is Rejoicing, There Should Be Trembling" "A fracture of no consequence..."

Other poems on the web by Laura Foley:
"Bridge"
"Through the Bardo"
"Traveling"
Five poems
"The Once Invisible Garden"
"Shadows and Light"
"The Once Invisible Garden"
"What Stillness"
Two poems
"Then"
Two poems
"Black Belt"
"To See It"
Three poems
"The Offering"
Five poems
"What Stillness"
"Looking the Other Way"
"Learning by Heart"
"An Ordinary Sunday"

Laura Foley's Website.

About Sledding the Valley of the Shadow:

"In Sledding the Valley of the Shadow, Laura Foley tells the tale of how we suffer, how we are delighted, how we may triumph, and we find ourselves 'immersed like otters, in the buoyancy of life on Earth, in time taking us and re-making us.' Joy emerges in these poems even while Foley contemplates 'another brush with the great beyond ... keening, / just outside the screen' and the reader finds herself 'recalled ... time and time again.' Like the speaker in 'The Beauty of the Beast,' we are reminded to 'dare, in early heat, the scariest, /most gorgeous beach (we) know,' to immerse ourselves in that 'sweet coolness.' These are poems of transformation and transcendence, trouble and redemption, distress and comfort where 'the dark underside of the bridge becomes a riverine cathedral'-and we join the speaker 'soothed by its cool shadows, floating at ease.'"
—Carol Potter

"This collection is a striking meditation on 'love made visible.' Its poems nudge us to pay careful attention to what's happening within and beyond us. They invite us to greater intimacy with our lives even while smacking up against the hard stuff of living."
—Phyllis Cole-Dai

"The path of Laura Foley's remarkable new poetry collection begins with a 'huge, black-winged bat ... this shadow of death' circling her; then the shadow fades into background as we learn more about Laura's history, people she cares about, and her delight in walking on pathways in Vermont and Spain. She is a keen observer with a gift for creating concise, zen-like descriptions-not just visual but rich in all the senses. Just as I was settling into the poetry and feeling connected to the poet, the shadow tried a return-in harrowing health crises for Laura and her wife, Clara, followed by the Covid pandemic. Amazingly though, the book doesn't descend into pathos but rather is full of joy, humor, and, most of all, love; as in 'The Ineffable,' describing Clara's healing.... 'Back in the house, she practices vibrato, / her deep alto rising through the floor boards, / the roof on the house rising too, / the sky opening for both of us.' Yes, this is a collection of strong poems, but it is also a really compelling, redemptive story."
—Kali Lightfoot