David T. Manning's notable chapbook Out After Dark (Pudding House, 2003) encompasses the relationships of the living to their ancestors, the pleasures of now and their passing into the past as each generation lives its own time. As the title would suggest, many of the poems focus on manifestations of night. These are well-crafted poems and a very readable book.. This is followed by The Flower Sermon (Main Street Rag, 2007). Rooted in this world, engaging, and evocative describe the poems in this book. Manning is aware of every moment and its passing. (updated 11/07)

Rescue (Backwaters Press, 2000), by Sally Allen McNall, won the 1999 Backwaters Prize and How To Behave At The Zoo And Other Lessons (State Street Press, 1997) was her prize-wining chapbook. The poems in Rescue are poems of intelligence and compassion which illumine the ordinary moment in daily life. They are also wise poems, constructed with skillful craft and rich clarity. This is definitely one of the best books of poetry to come out in 2000.

A Frieze Drawn Over Peace (1999) is Baldwinsville poet Ellen McNeal's limited edition chapbook collecting her skillful ghazals centered around war in Serbia and a host of her wonderful peaceful garden photographs as contrast.

If I Could Know The Soul (Gemini Press,1996) is a long poem that comprises Lee D. Mendenhall's 14 page chapbook. Lee is a master of formal verse and uses it effectively here.

Joyce Meyers gives us Wild Mushrooms (Plan B Press, 2007), a 40 page chapbook of poems about the world, both in its bounty of nature and art, and in the tragedies of the war-torn and ravaged. Azaleas, O'Keefe paintings and snowbirds share pages next to women choosing whether to bear a child, the homeless, sleeping on park benches, and damaged Iraqi children. Her fine poems are spare, direct, and from the heart. (Updated 2/08)

Peggy Miller gives us Martha Contemplates The Universe (Frith Press, 1999), the runner-up in the 1998 Frith Press Chapbook Competition, and in this way gives us Martha, an unlikely heroine of her own dramas of everyday life. Clever and ironic yet tender in its treatment of the craziness in all of us, it is a delight. In her Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2003), longer, carefully crafted yet intense poems about science and time fill the pages with their themes of presence and absence. Now, there is What the Blood Knows (CustomWords, 2007), a powerful taxonomy of the world in verse. Flowers and vegetables,, animals and birds, seaweed, trees are embodied by the stories woven in each finely-wrought poem as the poet seeks answers to this unknowable universe. Her universe is not just an airy concept; it has its scientific underpinnings intact as she explores her over-riding themes of mortality and consciousness.. This book is a fine achievement, both intellectually and poetically, one of the best of poetry collections this year. (updated belately 11/07)

Deep Freeze (BkMk Press, 1994) by Philip Miller is a fine yet dark collection, heavy with poems of loss, loneliness, and grief. The poems are intimate, understated, and thick with description. As Neal Bowers says, the poems are about difficult subjects: impasse, stasis and silence leading to quiet regeneration of the self.

Wendy Mnookin is the author of the lyrical collection The Moon Makes its Own Plea (BOA, 2008) beautifully nuanced poems of family, the brevity of life, and the commingling of delight and heartbreak. Her work shines with clarity even as it reflects the mystery of its subjects. The poet's imagery is especially lovely. How loss can shape and inform an adult life is the theme of What He Took (BOA, 2002), Written from the persona of a 2 year old, these poems are lyrical and unpretentious. In To Get Here (BOA, 1999), haunting narrative poems about a loving family and an addicted son show how love can not always save us. Her earliest book, Guenever Speaks (Round Table Publications, 1991), is a collection of dramatic monologues from characters in the Arthurian legends. This is a very talented and accomplished writer. (Updated 4/09)

 Red Jess (Cherry Grove, 2006) by Judith H. Montgomery is one of the most outstanding books of poetry to be published this - or any - year. Like her prize-winning chapbook Passion (Defined Providence, 1999), the lyrics are engaging, a mix of lively and grave, and heartbreakingly beautiful. Montgomery is a master of form when she chooses to use it: "Blaze, with Apples" is the best pantoum I have read. She pays attention, both with her senses and her heart, and tenders the result in sculpted, fluent music that moves and transforms us. Her newest chapbook is Pulse & Constellation (Finishing Line 2007), a hope-filled tapestry of death and eternity woven from loss, wonder and love as each poem explores the heart's mysteries.  (updated 7/07).

The Mouth of Home (Arctos Press, 1999) is the work of Janell Moon. These are unflinchingly honest personal poems; one reviewer said, Janell Moon writes "with wicked humor and a compassionate voice." Her new collection is the intriguingly titled Riding Free in a Blue Studebaker (Main Street Rag, 2008). Many of the lyrical poems are based on family stories, culled from memory, sweet, flowing, and natural. They evoke a wide range of feelings from the reader as they plumb the yearnings of us all. (Updated 3/08)

Heaven of the Moment (Fairweather Books, 2007) by  John C. Morrison is the winner of the 2006 Rhea & Seymour Gorsline Poetry Competition. These poems inhabit each moment fully.  His language is precise and although the poems cover a vast amount of subjects, he retains a strong preference for the natural world. Clarity, grace and gratitude are the hallmarks of his writing,  (added 5/08).

All I Have Is A Fountain (Singular Speech, 1995) comes from the pen of Australian poet R.H. Morrison and it's truly a garden: sixty pages of beautiful, lyrical, formal verse.

The Fractured Emerald (Pathways Press, 1992), by Daniel P. Murphy, mines the rich familiar territory of childhood and family intertwined with Celtic legend and Irish charm. 68 pages.

 The poems of Erin Murphy in her debut collection, Science of Desire (Word, 2004), are edgy, idiosyncratic, and totally marvelous. They are filled with wry humor, quick intelligence and "love for the ordinary stuff of the world."(Eamon Grennan). These are persona poems in the best sense of the word, as the poet briefly inhabits the lives of others, mostly family members. (added 11/07)

Kate Murphy's When We Thought of War (Pudding House, 2002) gives us stirring portraits from "modern" wars: the scenes of a family's daily life in Kosovo, an American schoolgirl remembering air-raid drills of the Cold War, survivors of September 11. Outstanding poems that demand hope in spite of it all.

In Useful Fiction (Pudding House, 2003), Patricia Cochran Murrell tells the story of middle-aged romance, starting with the end of a marriage, the dating process, and the beginning of a new and greater love. Her direct speech makes the poems do their work well.

The first chapbook from the pen of poet Karen  Neuberg, Detailed Still (Poets Wear Prada, 2009), is a mix of traditional free-verse and short prose poems. Many poems question memory, not specific memories (though there are some), but the concept of memory itself. Unique imagery and metaphor elevate the poems as they reflect experience in multiple ways, often with a Zen perspective. 20 pages. 12/10 www.poetswearpradanj.home.att.net/

Tam Lin Neville:  Dreaming in Chinese (Calypso, 1995) was the winner of Calypso's first poetry chapbook competition. Its 20 pages link to the poems of 9th century Chinese poet Po Chui as modern poet Tam Lin Neville rewrites, writes poems generated by, and compiles composites from translations of Po Chui's work.(reviewed in 2007, missed posting until 2008)

Sean Nevins:  Oblivio Gate (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008) marks Sean Nevins' strong debut volume of poetry, deserving of its First Book Award in the Crab Orchard Series, a luminous collection yielding heartbreaking insight into "the power of memory and the tragedy of its demise" (Denise Duhamel) as it brilliantly chronicles a man's confusion as his mind slowly unravels, leaving him abandoned in the landscape of his own mind. (Added 1/08)