Frank Fagan – Pick A Word
Soldier, writer, editor, marketing consultant, press spokesman, business executive, political organizer, my father. Autodidact and brilliant wordsmith–my first lyrical word sounds.
Kay Ryan – The Best of It: New and Selected Poems
Ryan’s compression and brilliance wooed me from the first encounter. I never tire of her game.
Ted Kooser – The Blizzard Voices
I read this haunting collection many years ago during winter, in nearly one sitting, and I have never forgotten it. Every winter, its aches return to me.
Jan Beatty – Jackknife: New and Selected Poems
I heard Beatty read at The Dodge Poetry Festival and was struck by her raw, unflinching subjects and language. Her poems repeatedly catch me between the eyes and by the throat.
Claudia Rankine – Citizen: An American Lyric
Read this book. Read it again. Better yet, listen to Rankine read it to you.
Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, mother of two, and the author of a poetry chapbook, Have Love, Finishing Line Press (2019), a collection of short stories, The Grief Eater, Adelaide Books (2020), and Critical Companion to Robert Frost (Facts on File, 2007). Fagan’s work is available in various creative and academic journals and collections. Her poem, “”Outside In,”” was a Best of the Net Finalist, 2018. Fagan is a reviewer for Orange Blossom Review.
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