‘Family Snapshot’: Thumbs Up from Midwest Book Review

D. Donovan of the Midwest Book Review calls my last solo collection, “Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time,” “a poetry collection the entire family can enjoy.”

Ms. Donovan writes: “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. It thus is recommended not just for the usual poetry collection and reader, but for anyone who would absorb reflections on self, family, and the interconnectedness of life, at any age.

The chapbook, out from Finishing Line Press in 2019, offers contemporary adult poems followed by a section of children’s poems. It also received praise from the Loch Raven Review and Kirkus Review. This Nov. 2021 review can be found below. Grateful for insightful readers.

Direct Link: http://donovansliteraryservices.com/november-2021-issue.html#fsa

Midwest Book Review: http://www.midwestbookreview.com/mbw/nov_21.htm#dianedonovan

Review: Book of Songs (trans. James Trapp)

Sometimes a publisher and author together create a beautiful book, a keepsake as well as a joy to read, and Amber Books (London, UK 2021) has done just that in publishing a selection from the ancient Chinese Book of Songs (“Shi-Jing“). Highly recommended.

Set in a bright yellow, cloth-like-covered book the size and firmness of a wooden paddle, these poems are filled with refrains of loving and longing, and subtle music of the seasons at home and of travel, and of life at court. The wonderful dressing making them feel as real as water flowing over stone as you bend down and retrieve a bright pebble from a normally shallow, now gushing summer stream bed.

While I myself enjoy the ancient Chinese poets in translation, especially those books translated by Red Pine gifted to us through Copper Canyon, I have not beforehand dipped into the Book of Songs.

This selection is not overwhelming and refreshing. The care of the binding, the rich smooth interior paper, makes it feel like someone has brought precious music and knowledge from far away, and left it at your doorstep.

Midwest Review Covers Simultaneous Revolutions

“Simultaneous Revolutions reaches into the heart, mind, and literary worlds with images that resonate long after the reading is over. It’s highly recommended.” D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review (Aug. 2021).

Simultaneous Revolutions (Poems) – Reviewed by D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

G.H. Mosson and Marcus Colasurdo

PM Press

www.pmpress.org

ISBN: 9781629638676

$5.95 Pamphlet / $2.99 ebook

Donovan’s Bookshelf, http://www.midwestbookreview.com/mbw/aug_21.htm#dianedonovan

Direct Link: http://donovansliteraryservices.com/august-2021-issue.html#srp

Warrior With Shield (Poem)

“Warrior With Shield,” a poem of mine that I began around fifteen years ago or so, and based on a Henry Moore sculpture, is out with Wrath Bearing Tree, linked below.

It is amazing to work on something for this long, and maybe change in one’s life (without doubt) while trying to hone in on the original impression and insight. It is great to see how the poem has evolved, hopefully into greater expression of the essence of the instinct.

I certainly am grateful for the editors of Wrath Bearing Tree for seeing what I saw and still see!

WARRIOR WITH SHIELD: https://www.wrath-bearingtree.com/…/new-poetry-from-g…/

Moore’s Sculpture, Image Link: https://collections.artsmia.org/…/warrior-with-shield…

Hazelton Arts League (May 2021)

We were honored to debut a reading at this new, beautiful community arts-making space with musicians in Hazelton, PA.

Marcus and I read from Simultaneous Revolutions (PM Press 2021), co-authored by G. H. Mosson and Marcus Colasurdo, and a few additional poems to decorate the evening.

The Hazelton Art League is a great asset to the community, and their online home can be found here: https://www.hazletonsartleague.org/.

Thank you Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine

For publishing “Becoming Suzy” and “Bozo’s Exile,” and also, to Free State Review‘s editor too for helping the poem, Becoming Suzy, be realized, before submitted and accepted here. I know Suzy now. This is a gorgeous magazine out of Charlotte, North Carolina, and their online home is found here: https://www.sanskritmagazine.com/.

Thank you Cardinal Sins

For publishing Dad’s Harvest Song and Janet’s Fire Escape in 2021. Janet’s Fire Escape, for me, is a long time favorite. For the journal’s online home at Saginaw Valley State University, see https://www.cardinalsinsjournal.com/