Equilibrium by Tiana Clark
I love Tiana’s full length book, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, but her chapbook, Equilibrium, is close to my heart as a book that captures a strong voice breaking into the poetry world with an urgent fierceness. I look to Tiana’s work as inspiration to speak directly and to challenge myself to explore and exploit form.
Good Reason by Jennifer Habel
Jenn’s poems explore marriage and motherhood in quietly powerful poems that highlight small, almost fragile, moments. I look to Jenn’s poems when I need to be reminded that daily life can be filled with magic.
Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón
I think I’ve read Bright Dead Things at least 10 times. There is something in these poems that makes them feel simple, and yet… they take my breath away. The language, with welcome plainness and precision, breaks open the world.
Post- by Wayne Miller
Wayne’s poems in this collection are intimate and often heartbreaking as well as beautifully and delicately crafted. They explore loss, fear, hope, memory…all in the midst of what an outside observer might call mundane moments.
Charles Wright
I simply can’t choose one collection; I love his early work as well as his later work. I love Wright’s evocative language, especially the way he draws on landscape, and his ability to combine the divine, the human, and the humorous. And dogs; there are lots of dogs.
Darby Lyons lives in Cincinnati and recently retired from teaching English and creative writing in Wyoming, Ohio. She received her MFA from the Sewanee School of Letters, and her work has appeared in Rogue Agent, SWWIM Every Day, The American Poetry Journal, and other publications. She reads poetry submissions for The Cincinnati Review.