Press 53, a small independent publishing company located in Lewisville, is slated to release a new book of poetry by Charlotte painter/poet Beebe Barksdale-Bruner. The book will hit bookshelves on April 1, in celebration of National Poetry Month.

Barksdale-Bruner holds a master's degree in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte and a bachelor's degree in painting from UNC-Greensboro. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Eclectica, Mad Hatter Review, Main Street Rag, R.KV.R.Y, Sage of Consciousness, Stick Your Neck Out, Survivor Review, words.words.words, and in the anthologies, "AguaTerra #3," "Home for the Holidays" (Old Mountain Press, 2006), and "In the Yard" (Old Mountain Press, 2006).

"It Comes to Me Loosely Woven" is Barksdale-Bruner's first full-length collection of poetry. The book contains a range of poetic expression from free verse to Fibonacci. Fibonacci are poems structured in a mathematical pattern known as the Fibonacci sequence.

"You know, it's new, the fib [as the form is popularly called]," says Barksdale-Bruner. "Just something somebody decided to experiment with, using the ratio in a poetic form. The Greeks may have been the first to see this ratio in nature: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc. The first two numbers added together equal the second number, etc."

Barksdale-Bruner first heard of the Fibonacci form from Atlanta poet Tom Lombardo.

"It's too new to be widespread," she says.

But the word is circulating quickly among poets and other writers. Last April The New York Times featured a blogger named Gregory K. Pincus, whose blog GottaBook (gottabook.blogspot.com) issued a call for Fibonacci poetry submissions that set off a Fibonacci frenzy and garnered over a thousand entries for at least 100 Web sites on the Internet. Like haiku, the form is short but demanding. That's one reason Barksdale-Bruner likes it.

"I have absolutely no work ethic," she says. "None. I like daydreaming and messing around on the computer. Then a poem may come to me. Ron [Rash, with whom she studied at Queens University] noticed I can get things through osmosis, the sound especially. No way to explain, really. But I'm always thinking poetry. No kidding. This is how the title of my book came about."

Barksdale-Bruner's new book will be launched at RayLen Vineyards in Mocksville on Saturday, April 14. Barksdale-Bruner and two other Press 53 poets, Valerie Nieman ("Wake Wake Wake") and Joseph Mills ("Somewhere During the Spin Cycle"), will read from 5 to 7 p.m. to commemorate the release of Barksdale-Bruner's new book and to celebrate National Poetry Month.

A pre-launch reading in Charlotte, introducing Barksdale-Bruner, is schedule for April 7 at 7 p.m. at Borders Books & Music in South Park.