Penny Harter

Still-Water Days Penny Harter

The poems in Still-Water Days are like prayers to the universe and to the universe in each of us. These are songs of earth, the sea, the galaxy, the cello as well as dissonant songs from those sleepless neon streets. Through memories, dreams, and the powers of observation, the poet brings us poems that fill the silence of this pandemic isolation. We walk the paths of the poet, become lost, become found, understand the bittersweetness of life, yet never let bitter take the lead. These are poems of joy, mystery, and sorrow that fill us with gratitude, hope, and the healing power of nature.



-Carole MacRury, Author of In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides



Delving into day-to-day experiences with nature, memories, and dreams, Penny Harter writes a love-letter to life itself as she navigates her way through the restraining orders of the pandemic. The poems in Still-Water Days are roadmap poems through troubled times to the hopeful place of better times ahead. This collection of heartfelt passage is an accessible and indelible triumph of spirit. As Penny relates in her title poem, I gather clouds from blue waters, fill the / chambers of my heart with gentle murmurs, / find comfort in their slow shape-shifting / that mirrors my own, these still-water days.



-Tom Clausen, Photographer, Poet, and Author of Growing Late, Snapshot Press



In this new collection of intensely spiritual poems, readers find a kind of compressed storytelling that speaks both lyrically and narratively to our place on history's timeline. Characterized by textured emotional centers, clarity of form and expression, and a strong closeness to the natural world that is buttressed by the human spirit, these poems create a poetry of relationships that often points to a particular truth or leads readers to think more deeply about their own truths. Written during the Covid pandemic, Harter's poems embrace all that is haunting and all that is hopeful.



-Adele Kenny, Poetry Editor of Tiferet Journal