Fallen Love by Deirdre Garr Johns

Deirdre Garr Johns’ debut collection of poems, Fallen Love, captures the immediate and nostalgic landscape of love. The moment-by-moment description of driving in Pennsylvania searching for a radio reception (A Place of the Heart) takes us to the tense yet somehow sweet state of mind, the observation of skipping stones with a sense of loss (Unlike the Stone), or the reflection of how we planned that first call being tangled in a telephone cord (Landline) take us where our hearts have once been. Garr Johns’ unpretentious yet memorable expressions about a time in the life of love will add fresh impressions to readers’ memories.

–Miho Kinnas. Author of Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias (Free Verse Press.)

As a poet, Deirdre pays attention to the world around her in a way that made me stop and appreciate the energy of my surroundings. Street lamps, old rooms with faded lavender, aroma, and a phone ringing at midnight are a few of the glimmer moments that made their way into this collection. All written with a touch of honesty and emotional depth. I’m glad you made the choice to read this book. And perhaps Fallen Love will help you to see the many layers of this life we’ve chosen to live.

–Marcus Amaker, first Poet Laureate of Charleston, SC.

Impressive about Deirdre Garr Johns’ Fallen Love is the ways in which the collection explores—in a language compact and precise, smart and lyrical—the subtle arc of its theme, each poem carefully constructed while at the same time furthering the larger story. Fallen Love is the perfect example of Frost’s dictum that a collection of poems should itself be a poem. From the innocence of young love (“a boy and a girl/the beginning of something”) to their eventual breakup (“and I wish I could bury that child’s view/under dead flowers, /little tombstone for what is lost”) to a deeper wisdom (“A resting place will suffice–exposed to light,/memories surface,/ ripples in a still lake”), Fallen Love is a remarkable first collection from a most promising poet.

–Philip Terman, author of This Crazy Devotion (Broadstone Books) and Our Portion: New and Selected Poems (Autumn House Press)