Monarchs Soar: Rooted in Williamsburg Hardcover – Large Print, March 21, 2026

Monarchs Soar is a large‑print collection of poetic portraits celebrating the extraordinary lives of ordinary people—friends, family, mentors, ancestors, and mythic figures who shaped a community and a century. With clarity, tenderness, and a storyteller’s instinct for the essential moment, Michael Pedretti gathers voices from across time and place to honor the courage, humor, resilience, and quiet brilliance found in everyday lives.The book opens with a trilogy of poems for Frank Shatz—journalist, Holocaust survivor, and beloved Williamsburg figure—tracing his journey from wartime Europe to his hundredth birthday. From there, Pedretti turns his attention to dancers, scientists, teachers, clowns, immigrants, and kin: Nancy Hill’s fierce creativity, Joel Levine’s scientific imagination, Arlene Spielholz’s moral clarity, the author’s own evolving self, and the deep roots of the Pedretti and Venner families.Interwoven with these contemporary portraits are bold reimaginings of biblical characters—Eve, Cain, Lamech—rendered with empathy, wit, and philosophical curiosity. These retellings question inherited myths and illuminate the human longing for meaning, justice, and connection.Pedretti’s language is accessible yet layered, lyrical yet grounded in lived experience. Whether he is describing a childhood on a Wisconsin farm, a dog named Juniper, or the cosmic dust that shaped a scientist’s life, his poems invite readers to see the world with renewed wonder.This large‑print edition is designed for comfortable reading, making the collection accessible to a wider audience—elders, low‑vision readers, and anyone who prefers a more spacious, generous page.Monarchs Soar is ultimately a book about legacy—how stories are carried, how lives touch one another, and how hope persists even in an age of uncertainty. It is a testament to the belief that every life, when seen with care, becomes a kind of flight. Read more