Following in the footprints of Amy Clampitt and Robert Creeley - two of our greatest contemporary naturalist poets - Gloria Monaghan offers this exquisite collection. But, like all other prints left on a nature trail, her footprints are distinctly her own - whether tender, rhapsodic, wistful or sardonic. This trail begins in a cemetery where flowers are left to flourish in the water of tears. It then moves naturally to memories of the poet's father, siblings, a former love, and her children. In all of these poems - and in the others offered here - the words stun in their Dickinsonian simplicity and beauty. "The smell of my daughter's hair breaks my heart".Even when she is describing a grim crime scene ("The police search the reeds and the water … in the hope of finding a body"), she returns and finds/offers solace in the natural world ("Did your body smell like an ocean?").As befits good poetry, each poem here jars, prods, provokes, disturbs - even in a love poem - often with a sly sense of humor ("Your smell escapes me") or bitter regret ("The daylight / never ceases to astonish / … as if that's all we need").The richly textured images leave the reader glad to have taken the trek. It is a journey to which the lucky reader will return time and again, each time discovering new growth. — Neil Silberblatt, Founder/Director, Voices of Poetry; Author, Past Imperfect (Nixes Mate Books, 2018), nominated for Mass. Book Award in Poetry

False Spring: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Monaghan, Gloria

Poetry

Adelaide Books

Each of Hydrangea's imagistic poems invites us to contemplate our natures. This is a book that teaches us stillness through the soft eyes of a praying mantis and offers us the comfort of winter sparrows, unafraid. Monaghan's fine lyrical attention listens as "the grass sings its deep song." These vibrant, gentle, and finely hewn verses take us inside the speaker's heart to discover truths beyond what is "heavy, broken" and in disrepair to a state of grace where "no one can tell (us) that summer is ending."-Eileen Cleary, author of Child Ward of the CommonwealthWhere is this place that Gloria Monaghan takes us in Hydrangea? It is a world lush in with living things of every season: hyacinth, holly bush, Rose of Sharon, sparrows, robins, and "the red stable horses//in the meadow of darkened lavender." Monaghan plants us firmly in the earth to watch the blue jay, whose "blue, black, and white feathers/connect sky, heaven, and earth." Hydrangea's reach goes beyond a seasonal experience, to an emotional, spiritual, and creative realm, peopled with the masters: Rimbaud, Dante, and Keats. Here, Monaghan's heartbreak and heartache move us "like madness or waves," while her tender gratitude for "fingers, hair, and body" makes sacred these experiences. Thank you, Gloria Monaghan, for this rich journey beyond "the backstory time and space," reminding us, again and again, that "the figs are almost in season, /but then it will be August." -Jennifer Martelli, author of The Uncanny Valley and My TarantellaIn Gloria Monaghan's Hydrangea, the seasons find purchase in her backyard garden where "the clematis grows tall" and in the driveway's "series of dead mice." There is love here, and sadness, in the snow and rain, in the Spring and Autumn, in the "rust smell of (a) creek" in Michigan. I came away with hope, wanting to crawl out of quarantine and dig for mussels with Gloria on Nantasket Beach.-Michael McInnis, author of Secret Histories

Hydrangea

Kelsay Books

Gloria Monaghan's collection, Cormorant on the Strand, feels like a surprising gift, each section jettisoning us into new territory we must navigate with the deft hand of a confident poet. The poems are often in conversation with music, other writers, or movies, many as persona. Right from the starting poem, "Attic," the speaker is deeply afraid in the familiar.

Cormorant on the Strand

Lily Poetry Review Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Monaghan, Gloria. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Monaghan, Gloria

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Monaghan, Gloria. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

False Spring: Poems

Hydrangea

Cormorant on the Strand