Publication Date: April 15, 2026
Paperback, 94 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-40-6
The poems in Habitat of Ghosts touch upon childhood, aging, and much in-between, haunted by memory, maturation, and loss. In the first three sections, poems converse with each other via images: of hands (caressers of the extant), of eyes (portals of perception), and of hair (correlatives of thought). In the fourth section those image clusters give way to various representations of the poet’s early and ongoing impulse to speak, write, engage with other writers, witness, heal, and honor. These final poems may even be ars poeticas, for they portray how poets are made and what poets do, which is, come to think of it, what ghosts also do in their own smoky style: breach the barriers of isolation and mortality to sing.
Praise for Charlene Fix & Habitat of Ghosts
In a cold and foreboding world, Charlene Fix offers us the warmth of these elegant poems— “perfect incantations” that reveal the unseen world in all its startling beauty, darkness, and tenderness. Habitat of Ghosts is a prismatic flame which transforms the ordinary into the iridescent. Handwritten letters shift into “the hearts of birds drumming softly,” and spectral loved ones appear at pianos and bedsides and in cafeterias and dog’s fur. A song, prayer, and confession, this collection is the gift of pure spiritual labor and wisdom refined in the fires of suffering and loss. Habitat of Ghosts is a masterpiece of alchemy, a treasure for everyone who encounters its light.
—Sayuri Matsuura Ayers, poet & essayist
Through Habitat of Ghosts, Charlene Fix travels with grace, love, sorrow, and smiles. Her generous poems welcome us to travel with her, her arm around our waist, her “nimble hands pushing on doors / of air, opening them…” She comforts and renews the spirit as she remembers that “beauty lingers yet in damaged things.” These poems invite us into the souls of rooms we may have lived in for years—rooms of intimacy, rooms of loss, of parenthood, of marriage, of friendship, of creation—but now, with Fix’s gift for invitation and revelation, we are guided to a more ripened understanding of these essential places. And, with these extraordinary poems and their well-wrought wisdom, we too may “endeavor to ripen well.”
—David Swerdlow, author of Empty the River
About the Author
Charlene Fix came of age in South Euclid, Ohio, one of many free-range kids in this mostly working class suburb on Cleveland’s east side. So it is no surprise that these poems wander around a bit too, loosely tethered to those modest homes and schools, and later to localities beyond, spirit soaring but poems anchored by an accretion of universal particulars from childhood to aging. Charlene started writing poems in grade three, and by high school would walk the mile from a Cedar Center bus stop home from temp jobs downtown, never missing a beat in the books held open in her hands. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from The Ohio State University where she met her husband Pat during the riots in 1970, took a ten year break from writing while raising kids, teaching, dabbling in domesticity, then suddenly found herself buying piles of paper and writing again. Charlene has published poems in various literary magazines, and has been honored by grants from The Ohio and the Greater Columbus Arts Councils, two awards from The Poetry Society of America, and several Pushcart Prize nominations. Emeritus Professor of English at Columbus College of Art and Design, Charlene co-coordinates Hospital Poets at the Ohio State University Medical Center, works for peace and social justice, and is the mother of three and grandmother of two. Her website is http://charlenefix.com
Publication Date: April 15, 2026
Paperback, 94 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-40-6
The poems in Habitat of Ghosts touch upon childhood, aging, and much in-between, haunted by memory, maturation, and loss. In the first three sections, poems converse with each other via images: of hands (caressers of the extant), of eyes (portals of perception), and of hair (correlatives of thought). In the fourth section those image clusters give way to various representations of the poet’s early and ongoing impulse to speak, write, engage with other writers, witness, heal, and honor. These final poems may even be ars poeticas, for they portray how poets are made and what poets do, which is, come to think of it, what ghosts also do in their own smoky style: breach the barriers of isolation and mortality to sing.
Praise for Charlene Fix & Habitat of Ghosts
In a cold and foreboding world, Charlene Fix offers us the warmth of these elegant poems— “perfect incantations” that reveal the unseen world in all its startling beauty, darkness, and tenderness. Habitat of Ghosts is a prismatic flame which transforms the ordinary into the iridescent. Handwritten letters shift into “the hearts of birds drumming softly,” and spectral loved ones appear at pianos and bedsides and in cafeterias and dog’s fur. A song, prayer, and confession, this collection is the gift of pure spiritual labor and wisdom refined in the fires of suffering and loss. Habitat of Ghosts is a masterpiece of alchemy, a treasure for everyone who encounters its light.
—Sayuri Matsuura Ayers, poet & essayist
Through Habitat of Ghosts, Charlene Fix travels with grace, love, sorrow, and smiles. Her generous poems welcome us to travel with her, her arm around our waist, her “nimble hands pushing on doors / of air, opening them…” She comforts and renews the spirit as she remembers that “beauty lingers yet in damaged things.” These poems invite us into the souls of rooms we may have lived in for years—rooms of intimacy, rooms of loss, of parenthood, of marriage, of friendship, of creation—but now, with Fix’s gift for invitation and revelation, we are guided to a more ripened understanding of these essential places. And, with these extraordinary poems and their well-wrought wisdom, we too may “endeavor to ripen well.”
—David Swerdlow, author of Empty the River
About the Author
Charlene Fix came of age in South Euclid, Ohio, one of many free-range kids in this mostly working class suburb on Cleveland’s east side. So it is no surprise that these poems wander around a bit too, loosely tethered to those modest homes and schools, and later to localities beyond, spirit soaring but poems anchored by an accretion of universal particulars from childhood to aging. Charlene started writing poems in grade three, and by high school would walk the mile from a Cedar Center bus stop home from temp jobs downtown, never missing a beat in the books held open in her hands. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from The Ohio State University where she met her husband Pat during the riots in 1970, took a ten year break from writing while raising kids, teaching, dabbling in domesticity, then suddenly found herself buying piles of paper and writing again. Charlene has published poems in various literary magazines, and has been honored by grants from The Ohio and the Greater Columbus Arts Councils, two awards from The Poetry Society of America, and several Pushcart Prize nominations. Emeritus Professor of English at Columbus College of Art and Design, Charlene co-coordinates Hospital Poets at the Ohio State University Medical Center, works for peace and social justice, and is the mother of three and grandmother of two. Her website is http://charlenefix.com
