Catching the Moon

Siobhan Farrell has adroitly caught the moon and returned its trance-like glow into encounters with nature, love, grief and the persistence of joy. Her poems are natural organisms; nothing artificial here. She boldly enters into a relationship with the reader, revealing her inner life. She is open to the world and completely honest. Always accessible, every poem is a delight to read out loud, their rhythms corresponding to the emotions. They move like air on a summer's day. She remembers a sweet past, now gone, and the memories are painful as she walks, "surrounded by the blue spruce / we had planted / together." She longs "to join the circle / that was once my home." She takes a deep dive into the past, but she also rejoices in the present with its many "golden moments." She celebrates the seasons, the snowbirds, the fireflies, the squirrels, the silence. She rejects easy definitions about her ailing body. In the poem Changing the Script, she says "I want to hold the darkness in my hands / and taste the sweetness / of my wild and wondrous life." These are poems you will read over and over for their wisdom and their beauty.

-Joan Baril

Siobhan Farrell's poems read like music, changing chords and keys as her emotions soar or settle in contemplation. The depth and breadth of this collection is astonishing. These are celebrations.

-Michael Sobota, journalist/culture critic