Virtual Book Launch! “Nightjar” by Michael Simms, w/ Gerry LaFemina, Gail Langstroth, and Sharon Fagan McDermott — Today!
Poet and classical scholar Rachel Hadas notes that the poems “recall the darkly vatic voice of Brecht’s late lyrics. Yet, Simms always sounds like himself: plainspoken, intimate, vulnerable, courageous.”
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Three Ways of Looking at Beauty
When the hypnotherapist brought me out of my trance, I wondered about this deer, about my new vision of beauty—why had it changed? Something fundamental in me had shifted and reconstructed itself.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Summer’s End
The sudden slip of moon that turns the sun
into a wreath of fire. We’re waiting for that moment
during the eclipse when—at once—all the birds stop singing
Sharon Fagan McDermott: The Summer of Nectarines
Plague on the winds, in the air,
on our tongues in the midst of old conversations.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: On Memory and Writing
In one of my favorite memories, I am peeking through my fingers, shivering, as New York Harbor, the heliport, the bustling-streets of New York City, and–even the skyscrapers— plummet away … Continue reading
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Parli Italiano
Language is a song of loose coins, spilling down
from the fountains. Then bells of the Duomo ring
out over Firenze.
Judith Sanders: Autumn Walk at Beechwood Farms
You said, Name the world.
So I said, I call this a spangle tree.
How about, you said, a rose-hued spangle tree.
That’s beautiful, I said.
Let’s name the world together.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Sharon In Wonderland | Dandelion
The view from here? A prophecy
of how light, wind, and earth conspire
to play their role in dandelions’ flourishing—
then aids them in their vanishing.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Orchid Room, Phipps Conservatory
Grandma lived to be ninety-three
and wore the fabric of that tale to a soft sheen
with her retelling. Where does the past lie?
Sharon Fagan McDermott: This Against the Night
Sweet hyssop and the sweltering hives
from which sail bees, their resolute flight
into July, into my garden.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Meditation on a Sanctuary
And still there is shelter in shade
and pummeling rain, in the produce aisle
with its mounds of lemons, nectarines.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Carrie Furnace, Pittsburgh
The light is water driven through old gears and red lights sweep the streets looking for the lost while flaking brick simmers in itself like stew, and black graffiti … Continue reading
Sharon Fagan McDermott: The Book of Lesser Angers
presses each broken thing like an autumn leaf between pages where I watch the pace of disintegration, lacy residue. Rain writes within it a sloppy welter—the neighbor shaking her … Continue reading
Sharon Fagan McDermott: What I Won’t Tell Myself
The moon salts the sky with stars and the only sounds in the house are the dog’s breath and the furnace’s belch through old pipes. On this coldest night of … Continue reading
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