Vox Populi

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Sharon Fagan McDermott: On Time Passing

I wander through the rusting bulk
of Carrie Furnace and reach toward the ghosts of
Eastern European men who worked with fire
and molten ore for pennies a day to build the Empire

April 25, 2022 · Leave a comment

Sharon Fagan McDermott | Fragments: An Ars Poetica

within the word “ventriloquist,”
there’s “trout” and “rust” and “silver”

April 4, 2022 · 5 Comments

Sharon Fagan McDermott: War

This intensity, this buildup
of noise—Help us! —an echo of an old human
refrain through the mad and fucked up timbres
of our human history.

March 14, 2022 · 6 Comments

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.”

November 10, 2021 · 2 Comments

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.

October 17, 2021 · 18 Comments

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 

August 30, 2021 · 1 Comment

Sharon Fagan McDermott: The Summer of Nectarines

Plague on the winds, in the air,
on our tongues in the midst of old conversations.

June 30, 2021 · 2 Comments

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

May 18, 2021 · 6 Comments

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.

January 27, 2021 · 13 Comments

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.

October 7, 2020 · 7 Comments

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.

April 27, 2020 · 1 Comment

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?

February 6, 2020 · 3 Comments

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.

August 21, 2019 · Leave a comment

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.

June 5, 2019 · Leave a comment

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