Vireo

“Vireo by Sally Nacker is a quiet, beautiful book.

With nature as its subject, this collection

gives voice to the backdrop of our lives.

“Where late the sweet birds sang,” Shakespeare writes,

and this might be Nacker’s credo. A semi formalist,

Nacker uses rhyme with a master’s grace,

and with the music of both joy and sorrow. Dickinson

is her clear foremother—in both subject matter

and form—but these poems

are at the same time Nacker’s own.

A lovely and resonant debut collection.”

–Kim Bridgford

“The poems in Sally Nacker’s Vireo are bright with

insight and surprise: a lawn rake ruminates

on its aging owner; a turtle’s shell

becomes a room into which the poet,

like the turtle, withdraws; a painting

turns its viewer into the anxious figure it portrays.

Be they light or dark, Nacker plumbs her subjects

with a deft touch, a keen sense of sound and harmony,

and precise attention to detail.

Her refreshingly quiet sensibility is a welcome harbor.”

–Henry Lyman

About the artist:

Cover and inside watercolors of the red-eyed vireos were painted by

Kathleen D. Michaud,

Originals by Kathy

sally nacker