Praise for Irene O’Garden’s Work

“Bewitching…astounding…heartbreaking.”

—The New York Times

“An immersion into what we relish and how we live, a kind of shining beacon that doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff… Highly recommended.”

—Janet Pierson, Producer, SXSW Film Conference and Festival

“In a far-ranging and elegant suite of poems, Irene O’Garden balances a galaxy of incommensurates on the fulcrum of a disciplined intelligence. ‘I am a blueprint of a holy universe’ seesaws against ‘I feel like a set of china’—the former in a Herbert-like sacred meditation, the latter in a narrative about being chased by a bull. Her technique suggests influences ranging from Donne to Bishop, from Frost to Moore. Soulful and rewarding, these poems remind us that ‘We’re not made of matter but of mattering.’ ”

—T.R. Hummer, whose poems appear in The New Yorker, Best of American Poetry, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review, and twelve volumes of his own

“The poems in Irene O’Garden’s book, Fulcrum, illustrate the importance and vitality of poetry in our daily lives. Beautiful imagery, powerful emotions, simplicity, complexity and thought-provoking subjects—all drawn from relatable life experiences—make reading her work a journey of discovery and reflection focusing on what it means to live a life of passion and wonderment. Like the author herself, the poems in these pages inspire and draw one in. It is a beautiful collection.”

—Professor Jane Kinney-Denning of Pace University, President of Women’s National Book Association