I am just thrilled–beyond thrilled–that my most recent collection of poems, Larks at Sunrise: Light-Hearted Poems for Dark Times has received a review from poet, teacher, and critic Barbara Egel. It has just been published online in Light Poetry Magazine. (If you would like to know the backstory of how it came to be published or how to find your own copy of the book, click on the first link. To learn more about Barbara’s work, click on the second. To find Barbara’s review, click on the third.)

I have been a fan of Light since 2013. Editor Melissa Balmain and her editorial colleagues Julie Kane, Allison Joseph, Kevin Durkin, and Gail White regularly publish some of the most incisive poems about current events and the human condition, poems that demonstrate how comedy stems from painful truths and yet transforms them into laughter, at least for a moment. And it is wonderful to see that Light poets, whose more somber-toned poems I have enjoyed in other journals, and whose books are on my shelves, know their way around a limerick, a knee-slapper of a haiku, or a rollicking quatrain. (Even T. S. Eliot looked up from the devastation of The Wasteland to pen Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats before diving into the labors of composing Four Quartets and an acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is good to know that many of today’s poetic luminaries have a forum for sharing their razor-sharp wit and quirky humor alongside their other serious works.)

The review of Larks is one of five reviews in the current issue of Light. The others consider The Colosseum Critical Introduction to Rhina P. Espaillat by Leslie Monsour (Franciscan University, 2021); Natural Causes: Poetry and Prose (1994 to 2019) by W. E. Holloway (Guy de Chemincreux, 2020); The Beekeeper and Other Love Poems by Barbara Loots (Kelsay Books, 2020); and Strange to Say: Etymology as Serious Entertainment by Deborah Warren (Paul Dry Books, 2021)–a work dedicated to Rhina P. Espaillat.

Because I have published some reviews myself, I know how much care and thought goes into considering some one else’s words and then to summarize one’s impressions in one’s own lively prose. Thank you, Barbara, for your attention to this craft of critique, and to looking so kindly at my own book.

It has given me such a lift that it will be a while before I come down to earth!

If you find yourself in need of a little extra buoyancy, especially now, as another Covid-inflected winter gathers, check out Light’s Poems of the Week, their most recent online issue, and the well-stocked larder of their archive.

Thank you for your inspiration and support!