In these carefully crafted poems, Fischer looks to nature, weather, and domestic life to thoughtfully explore fleeting states of feeling. Although she speaks of "the harsh lessons of ice," or shows us how a full life can shrink to two small rooms, she describes the world with an essentially affirmative eye.
~Rachel Pastan, author of This Side of Married, Lady of the Snakes
Time is at the center of our lives and at the center of Linda M. Fischer's Raccoon Afternoons. In her poems' richly lyrical phrasing, she accepts the inevitable passing of the seasons and of the stages in our lives and in the lives of those around us.…Yet she also offers examples of poetry's ability to celebrate and outlast—the beauty in a special moment or afternoon, in a loving relationship…and much more. In sum, her book is well worth a careful reading.
~Robert K. Johnson, poet and former Ibbetson Street editor
In her first collection of poems, Fischer shows us that she understands the meaning of carpe diem, an ingredient that makes them true and touching. These are elegant, eloquent poems that come alive in the reader's hands.
~Eileen M. D'Angelo, poet and editor of Mad Poets Review
In Raccoon Afternoons Shakespeare meets Robert Frost; free verse meets blank verse. The author's obvious knowledge and love of nature sing out loud and clear. This is both sensual and philosophical writing. In short, an enjoyable and accessible read.
~Amy Winkler, author of Waking at Night
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Linda M. Fischer, Poet
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With fresh language and rich imagery, Fischer’s poems in this little collection articulate a somber yet celebratory journey through “entropy’s slow progression” toward life’s end, death and grief. Love and devotion are at the core of these poems as she maps out joy, loss and hope with “the anticipation of her tomorrows as sweet.” Passages is life-affirming, a well-crafted collection I highly recommend.
~Jonathan K. Rice, former editor/publisher of Iodine Poetry Journal
With great delicacy but also depth and a vigilant eye for brightness, the speaker of Passages takes us through the days and seasons of loss, her passage out of great personal grief. The first poem, “Snowdrops,” is a testament to the resurgence of life. Though “trying to play duets with only two hands,” she ultimately turns to the lush world surrounding her—“that flash of daffodils and forsythia bursting/ into bloom.” Graciously, she allows the reader to become part of this careful, gorgeous watching—her path to healing.
~Elaine Terranova, author of Perdido
Brave, attentive, Linda Fischer’s poems catch a dying husband’s fluttering words, then enfold a widow’s sorrow into bulbs that sprout above cold ground in “a rhapsody of unfurling greens” and vivid blossoms. Rummaging through the clutter in his workshop, selling his car, hearing his voice in a forgotten phone message, she finds comfort in familiar rooms and routine chores. This is mature work that faces the inevitable with dignity until a lonely life becomes peaceful.
~Jacqueline Lapidus, co-editor of The Widows’ Handbook: Reflections on Grief and Survival
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Every gardener, Linda Fischer reminds us, “pit[s] herself … against the forces of rank nature,” and Glory records the intensities of that impossible struggle as Fischer’s gardener – her “dreamer” – works to reclaim her mother’s overgrown garden, “cheat[ing] time for three whole days together”; or mourns “what more / I might have done before / her sense of color damped”; or relishes in consolation the “impertinence” of ferns, the “frenzy” of squirrels, the “stealth footfalls” of deer, the creek’s “ceaseless quarrels.” Though loss is the constant that rules the garden of our lives, Fischer’s poems glory in the struggle, seizing each day though it’s all “only to be eclipsed by snow”: “if there be music,” she asserts triumphantly, “I will hear it,” and that’s a resolution, and a promise, for us all.
~Nathalie F. Anderson, author of Quiver, Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers
To enter Linda Fischer’s Glory is to live for a magical time among resplendent gardens where the rhythms of the natural world reveal to us our own life-rhythms and put us deeply in touch with our intuitive and essential selves. These are beautifully crafted poems, sometimes elegiac, sometimes celebratory, that enlarge our sense of connection to the earth and to each other, glorying in all that we are, and all that we are not but might become.
~Gregory Djanikian, author of So I Will Till the Ground, Years Later, Falling Deeply into America, The Man in the Middle
A warbler in one of the many fine poems appearing in Glory pours “out its abundant heart into the white light of morning,” and Linda Fischer pours out her abundant heart as well, as she describes the glories of gardens, both her mother's and her own, where there are: “tips of daffodils and narcissus reaching for the sun,” “the perfect juxtaposition of purple coneflower with globe thistle,” giant zinnias—“oranges and reds, hot pinks, gold,” sky-blue larkspur, glossy-leaved magnolias, “burnished holly, rusty pods of fern, a red blaze of winterberry.” How can we not imagine Eden, restored? Here, she “drinks the scent of lilacs with her coffee,” dreams of “peonies swelling like gaudy balloons.” About all this abundance, Fischer “cannot help but sing, and glory—glory!” and you will, too, dear reader, after reading this delightful lyrical collection.
~Barbara Crooker, author of Radiance, Line Dance, More, Gold, Small Rain, Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems