A Thousand Flames
Poems By Corey S. Pressman
Coming Nov. 3rd, 2026
Decades of looking closely, gathered into one collection.
Corey S. Pressman's debut collection, A Thousand Flames, offers poems of secular devotion, where a bird feeder can stand as the axis mundi and the bees have a god of their own. Across twelve sections, they travel from a Rockland County childhood to a hilltop in the fog, and as far back as the rooftops of Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Each poem asks you to slow down and stay a little longer than expected.
"Corey Pressman is a magical human - magical art, magical writing. His finely made poems are bells of vision and clarity to help us 'stay the same changing.'" - Naomi Shihab Nye
Join us Saturday Nov. 7th for the launch event at Up Up Books in Portland. Info and RSVP here.
About the Book
Corey S. Pressman writes, paints, and teaches, and all three inform A Thousand Flames, his debut collection. These are poems of secular devotion: a bird feeder named as the axis mundi, a god of the bees, an eschatology built from cattails and slow shade. Across twelve sections the book moves between a hilltop in the fog, a Neolithic town where weaving is the prayer, and desire lines crossing a map, holding each one long enough for the ordinary to turn strange.
Corey S. Pressman is an artist, writer, and teacher living in the Pacific Northwest. His poems, essays, academic works, and stories have appeared in journals, magazines, and bound collections including Orion Magazine, Gastronomica, Santa Clara Review, Critical Public Health, and the Anthropology and Humanism journal. His visual art practice centers on abstract works made with natural powdered pigments, paper, and handmade wax medium. Pressman's teaching often explores the relationship between art, attention, imagination, and wellbeing. He is faculty at the University of Portland and has led creative workshops at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology and Esalen Institute.
Learn more at coreypressman.com
Corey is available for readings, workshops, and interviews.
Contact: cspressman@gmail.com.