Mountains that See in the Dark
by Regine Ebner
In her debut poetry collection Mountains that See in the Dark, Regine Ebner, a writer and Montessori school leader in the Sonoran Desert, takes us through the hot, arid landscape of Arizona.
For Regine, the image is everything. The 52 poems in this collection fire vivid images - snapshots of scorched mountains, windswept border towns, the ruins of old farms, rusted machinery and sun-baked valleys far from the road. Ebner, like a photographer, is a witness in the wilderness, revelling in the joy of imaginative discovery - encountering gentleman foxes, glittering stars in cobra darkness and the lurid colours of desert towns. On her journeys, we are exposed to the deep chill of bitterly cold nights and the crucifying temperatures of midday, where lizards bask and mountain lions stalk.
As a writer, Regine Ebner is like a psychedelic Mary Oliver, her style characterised by economy, precision, poeticism and many heart soaring moments.
In the words of Welsh poet Natalie Ann Holborow, "Ebner’s poetry doesn’t just sit on the page; it prowls, it shimmers and it demands to be felt."
You don't need to go to Arizona - read Regine Ebner's poetry collection Mountains that See in the Dark. Available on Amazon in EBOOK and PRINT
ADVANCED PRAISE:
"Regine Ebner’s Mountains that See in the Dark is a moving exploration of landscapes both physical and emotional. Her poetry is an imagistic and sensory feast: ‘coyotes cry out with their violins’ against ‘a sauntering dusk of smoldered glitterati’, resulting in a collection that exudes confidence, the poetry as real and vivid as the sandstorms that whip through its pages. There’s an almost cinematic quality to Ebner’s work, an unflinching look at solitude, memory, and the untamed wild captured in poems from a writer who has a passion for bringing language to life through resonant imagery. Ebner’s poetry doesn’t just sit on the page; it prowls, it shimmers and it demands to be felt."
- Natalie Ann Holborow, author of Little Universe (Parthian, 2024).
"There is a prevailing sense of coiled energy, poems crouching like coyotes ready to spring. Indeed, the experience of reading this collection felt to me like watching and weathering with the poet in ever-changing desert light, awaiting that precious moment of revelation."
- Alice Stainer, author of 'Headlands' (Live Canon, 2024).
"One of my favorite poets in the Black Bough constellation, Regine Ebner writes with a mastery and finesse that elevates the mundane into the sublime. Through her keen imagistic lens, the reader is invited to see everyday objects in novel dimensions, transforming the familiar into the extraordinary. A master wordsmith, Ebner's use of language is precise yet expansive, creating whole worlds within stanzas that readers can fully experience and inhabit. Her work seamlessly combines intellectual rigor with emotional authenticity, crafting poetry that both challenges and nurtures the soul."
- Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad, author of ‘Patchwork Fugue’ (Atomic Bohemian Press, 2024)
"In Mountains that See in the Dark, Regine Ebner leaves no word wasted. Every crafted line belongs magnificently to the whole—each poem a terse, magic-filled breath. Ebner’s crisp language lassoes the imagination and fetters it to a sense-heightened, felt experience. Just as the poet elopes ‘with the heartbreaking buoyancy of spring,’ I want to elope with these poems. I want to fold into the ‘solitudes made of stone.’ I want to hide in ‘the old mesquite chapel.’ What is this land of ‘calypso stars’ and ‘saffron wind’? I delight in being ushered here by the glittering breath of this stunning poet."
- Marie Marchand, author of Mostly Sweet, Lovely, Human Things (Moon Path Press, 2025); inaugural Poet Laureate of Ellensburg, 2022-24.
"This collection is thick with rich language, animating the stillness of the desert and crafting a life of colour emerging from desolate spaces “bold with heat.” Shepherding the reader with the anticipation and emergence of light, Ebner’s work honours the landscape throughout the seasons. These poems embrace nature in a wilderness of hope beckoning us to immerse ourselves in her sharp imagery and to be ‘dressed in wind and mountain."
- Louise Machen, co-author of ‘The Words of Others Are All We Have’ (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024). Louise has a forthcoming collection with Black Bough.
"Page by page, Ebner’s lines hold on to memories as if they were the most beautiful of mementos. Cowboys, lizards, wild geese, the last red of day—all of it pristine and fascinating."
- Jack B. Bedell, author of Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024), Poet Laureate of Louisiana (2017-2019).
"Regine draws her beloved landscape in rust and gold, chiselling images that leave you breathless and reverent for the sheer presence of these cliffs and canyons. Wilderness sings to the speaker - coyotes with violins, banjos of storms, rivers that knell – a living geography revelling in her warm gaze. From the realm of ‘a hundred jaguars dreaming,’ Regine’s poems are jewelled love songs, an epic romance between a magical desert and a woman."
- Saraswati Nagpal, award-nominated writer. Forthcoming collection with Black Bough Poetry.
"The poems in this collection drift and settle about us, as we journey into the wilderness of the Sonoran desert. Each exquisite image is as vivid and delicate as a scrap of silk caught on a split-rail fence. We are beckoned into a shifting landscape of colours, scents and sounds, as into a dreamscape."
- Victoria Spires, forthcoming poetry collection with Fawn Press.
"It is the dreaming child in her who can envisage the ‘Mountains that See in the Dark’ as though gazing through the back window of a car on a long journey at dusk. It is her always curious inner child who looks carefully at the world and the people around her, then peeks under its skin, rearranges its pieces and sees behind a desert scene, the “eyes of invisible perception/ and a thin breath of illusion.”
- Polly Oliver, forthcoming poetry collection with Black Bough Poetry.
"Regine Ebner paints magical landscapes of love, death and nostalgia, haunted by totemic animals and rich with the fragrance of wild plants. Hers is a dreamlike poetic world of large skies, half-forgotten places and strange but utterly compelling imagery.
For days after reading this intoxicating collection you will find yourself at moments catching the scent of sagebrush on your clothes and brushing desert dust from your hair."
- Andy MacGregor, co-author of Nightjars.
