Thank you to Diane Donovan of Midwest Book Review for the positive review of my new book of poems, Singing the Forge (David Robert Books 2025), which she calls “immersive.”
As Donovan notes, the book takes place in Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, for the most part, with stops in Oregon, Baja California, off the coast of Florida, the cliffs of Truro in Cape Cod, on Long Island beaches, and beyond. The review comments:
“Libraries seeking accessible poetry that demonstrates an especially notable ability to steep readers in the progression of life, the evolution of values surrounding it, and the advancing years will find Mosson’s work highly recommendable.”
If you are looking for something literary in Maryland next weekend, there is the Baltimore Book Festival, which is held in Waverly, Baltimore, Md., this year on Sat. and Sun., Sept. 13-14, 2025.
Thank you to the Baker Artist organization for having me at their table on Sunday, Sept. 14, 11:30 AM to 1 PM, featuring my new book of poems, SINGING THE FORGE. Stop by!
There’s a pretty extensive line up of authors and discussion occurring across multiple stages; for more information, some handy links are below:
Big thanks to The Broadkill Review of Delaware, under the wings of new editors, for including my poem, “Hiding in the Theater,” in the Summer / Fall issue this year. It has been a fun ride writing, revising, changing back, tinkering, forgetting about, and then finishing it, over these past twenty years. As the speaker says in the poem, “Say hi in the eddy.” The poem is linked below:
I have enjoying finding five other poems accepted, then published online with BlazeVox: An Online Journal of Voice, this past spring and into the summer. It’s been a nice surprise, in terms of the feel of their vibe and the editor’s general enthusiasm for the chorus of contemporary poetry. The editor, Geoffrey Gatza, is a poet himself, also publishes BlazeVox Books. Hope to meet him someday. As he might say, “Rockets!”
I am thrilled to announce the debut reading from my new book of poems, SINGING THE FORGE (2025), at The Ivy Bookstore in Baltimore, Maryland, on Sunday, June 8, 2025, starting at 4pm. I will be reading with poet Reggie Harris, formerly of Baltimore, now of NYC, a fine poet who, along with yours truly and an engaging diverse open-mike, should be a knock-out, kick off summer event before we get hot, hot, hot in Maryland.
About SINGING THE FORGE, this book of poems covers three decades of my work and “explores the singing of what’s shaped us and what we’ve shaped for ourselves. Through poems at times personal, plus vignettes from men and women of the past two centuries in the book’s middle section, these poems offer mirrors of becomings. Readers encounter melodies from diverse lives. Across free verse, meter, and poems of organic form, you might just see yourself.”
I am excited to announce my new book of poems, Singing the Forge, from David Robert Books, out now. The typesetting was just finished in early March. Much thanks to wonderful yogi and artist, Jess Frey, for the spectacular cover, and David Robert Books of Word Tech Communications LLC (Ohio, USA) for their work and support.
Here’s a synopsis:
Singing the Forge explores the singing of what’s shaped us and what we’ve shaped for ourselves. Through poems at times personal, plus vignettes from men and women of the past two centuries in the book’s middle section, these poems offer mirrors of becomings. Readers encounter melodies from diverse lives. Across free verse, meter, and poems of organic form, you might just see yourself.
Here’s a cool cover:
Right now, it can be ordered via this link or through your local bookstore!
This month, I am hosting an online workshop to discuss and have fun with the last lines of poems, eight kinds, through the Eastern Shore Writers Association, and registration is free. Link below with more details.
It has been interesting to see different poets do different things, as I have prepared for this presentation. For instance, the famous couplet conclusion of a Shakespearean sonnet (conclusion ending) resonates with a less obvious imagistic closing tercet of Jack Gilbert’s “A Brief for the Defense” (image ending).
Right now I have eight kinds of endings in my taxonomy. Of course, I consider these eight categories, as applied, often primary. That is, usually there are other resonances afoot.
For instance, Shakespeare’s closing couplet in Sonnet 18 concludes the poem’s argument, but also resonates by refocusing on many levels, say from season to art, when compared to the opening line. Likewise, Gilbert in the above poem uses an image that creates an open-ended resonance, yet on further examination, the image also summarizes the poem’s argument as well as shifts the poem’s opening theme when compared to its first line.
I was recently looking through this book, published in 2019, but taking place closer to 2012, and wish I had circulated more with it at the time.
Nevertheless as the book title hints, I was just too busy with family and making a living. This said, the book garnered three reviews and one reading at the Enoch Pratt Library, in downtown Baltimore, Md.
The Midwest Book Review’s November 2021 review via Donovan’s Bookshelf monthly newsletter is excerpted below, as the link is cumbersome. Cheers.
Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time is a poetry collection the entire family can enjoy, and captures a father’s love for his daughter and son with pieces that celebrate growth and family connections.
These free verses offer readers the chance to view their own families in a different light against the mirror of G.H. Mosson’s experience with time’s passage, growth, and interactions with his kids:
“Firecracker daughter,/your volcano of energy exhausts my imagination. I always thought/imagination meant walking in a moonlit field weeping/Where was I? And where have I traveled to? The easy answer: time.”
The narrator questions the legacy he transmits to the next generation (“If I am not a dreamer, how will my son know me?”) while also transmitting to this generation poetic pieces that will resonate with young listeners and observers:
“Thinnest crescent in the night, your moonbeams gleam/a tinsel light, and two tiny stars nearby/are just as bright./I think you’ll play together tonight/when I’m not watching.”
As the pieces for adults in the first half weave into verse for children in the second half, the entire family will find the arc of the book also evocative and reflective of the parenting experience:
It’s unusual to see a poetry collection that can appeal across generations, but Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time is such a production.
Thanks so much to JMWW Journal, Loch Raven Review, and Wayne Literary Review for publishing four poems of mine in Fall 2024.
Wayne Literary Review out of Wayne State University published a poem written in the 2022-2023 time frame, but the remainder of them date back one or two decades to the first draft.
While “How Far, Two Stars,” is based on work from 2005, most of that was revised out, so it is mostly new.
