Richard Nester

Red Truck Bear Richard Nester

Richard Nester is a storyteller whose guidance I trust. In some cases, his exactness leaves one feeling a sense of order, while in others it becomes a paradox we are delighted to wrestle with time and again. So, if his poetry is "rereading" as he suggests in one poem, we are better for it. His most profound lines border on metaphysical mantra: "All matters of death are matters of survival as well." These poems are the moon that "looks back" with no "discovery" on its mind and without holding our innocence against us. When going home isn't an option, Red Truck Bear will be solid ground to return to.

Raundi Moore-Kondo, author of Death of the Snowman

Red Truck Bear provides poetic evidence of dark matter. Many of its lines read as if there were other invisible, but darkly compelling, lines between them.

Ricki Mandeville, author of A Thin Strand of Lights

Richard Nester is my favorite kind of poet and one of the best writers out there. He can take the mundane, a moment with his mother, a noisy neighbor in the apartment nearby, a floor that is a little dusty in his house, and he can draw our attention to what is spiritual, even sacred about those things. In doing so, he elevates the reader, or perhaps he elevates just me. After all, he has given me new perspective and allowed me to find empathy for the people and things I would have normally moved blindly past. His newest collections, just like all of his collections, is a work of profound beauty and insight. It should be read and reread by everyone.

John Brantingham, author of The Green of Sunset and DUAL Impressions: Poetic Conversations about Art