Reviews

Reviews of Martin Galvin's PoetrY "Martin Galvin's book takes a...more sardonic look at our times populating his poems with people who have somehow let life pass them by...cocktail loungers who are 'Picassoesque grotesques'...Galvin presents these lost souls and others with wit, compassion and intelligence. This is a book of the all too familiar, 'the ceremony of the world coming together.' But what escape is there? For one, there's the imagination, as when the poet's daughter suddenly breaks through the dreary absurdities by announcing 'The moon is like a door knob.' Secondly, there's the natural world...Galvin offers an exceptionally lovely lyric on life's inherent possibilities. By balancing fierce irony and keen wit with this sort of gentle and lovely testament, Galvin has produced a very fine first collection of poems." -Paul Genega, Washington Review, October/November 1990. "Indeed, his work bounces from the elegiac to the perverse, and, more often fuses the two. He is part Flannery O'Connor, part W. H. Auden and in all an observer and filter of random events." -Tracey O' Shaughnessy, author, journalist, the Republlican-American, Waterbury, CT "...I absolutely love (OK I'm shouting!) 'Weathering the Front Door.' At the end I felt as if I were dancing. I love the colloquial way you talk. What a great way to describe 'the bride and groom reel/from the garden path into the house and bed.' ...and then that final line. I'm going to go back to it when I need a pick-me-up." -Barri Armitage, poet and musician, author of Double Helix ii Other Books By the Author Sounding the Atlantic Circling Out Appetites (out of print) Making Beds (out of print) Wild Card iii About Sounding the Atlantic, 2010: "It's a real treasure trove, with poems born of every kind of mood and narrators who range from a 15 year old 'Valley Girl' kiss collector to a one-eyed, middle-aged hillbilly skunk hater. There's much in the way of wisdom and insight, precise observation and dazzling metaphoric connectedness, and, best of all, there are turns and turnabouts of language that are like the acrobatics of your trapeze artist.... Sounding the Atlantic is truly a signal achievement. Out of thin air...you've cooked up a feast of pleasures for anyone who can read." -Kermit Moyer, author of The Chester Chronicles "It has been an absolute delight to amble through your new book. The people you create, the stories you tell, are quite wonderful. I certainly haven't finished picking it up, getting lost in the words, assimilating, then moving on...each day a new wonder. This one has to be a prize winner and let me be one of the surely many-before the event-to give you a hearty congratulations. Thank you!" -Sherry Stanley, poet "...I dig your lines, taut and snug at both ends, and great rhythms.... I also was intrigued by such attention to voice.... I teach fiction and poetry and your strong narratives and character/voice in poetry would be a good lesson...your 'Passive Aggressive' poem will likely find its way into my creative writing class this semester...." -Todd B. Rudy, Cornell University, 2002 About Circling Out, 2007: "In the beautifully wrought book, Circling Out, we find Martin Galvin's poems immediately steeped in his Irish Catholic heritage. One is reminded of that country and its legacy as in the work of Seamus Heaney or Evan Boland. We enter a strong sense of place, yet Galvin holds his own in originality, simile, metaphor, language, and idea. Still, it is a comfort and a blessing (as the Irish might say) to hear a voice from the rich landscape of a country with such strong and ancient tradition of poetry, this Celtic land of Atlantic Europe." -Montserrat Review, Mary Morris, poet