Daniel Zehner has had poems and haiku published in Paterson Literary Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Lips, The Main Street Rag, the Aurorean, New Jersey Bards Poetry Review, Frogpond, several Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthologies, and many Moonstone Arts Center anthologies. He recently received an Honorable Mention in the 2025 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards sponsored by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College and has had a poem included in Speaking For Everyone, An Anthology of “We” Poems edited by Eric Greinke. He is a retired trial lawyer living in New Jersey. www.danielzehnerpoet.com
PRAISE:
In Dan Zehner‘s debut collection, On the Outskirts, love is lived, not claimed, and strengthened by time, memory, care, and forgiveness. From the woods of his childhood to the hills of California and the cafes of Germany, Zehner’s poems trace an arc of loss, discovery, reconciliation, and grace. In “Disagreeing with Li Po at Night in Northern California,” he chooses presence over escape, delighting in family, the moon, and a rainbowed sky. It is in these moments that the poet encourages us to come in from the outskirts of our lives so we can tend to our inner flame. Zehner’s redemptions are patient and quiet—like the bulbs in his mother’s English garden, growing unseen until one day they bloom.
–John Wojtowicz, author of No Lightsabers in the Kitchen
“What a miracle, what / a transformation,” Zehner writes in the poem “The Light of Reconciliation,” a line at the heart of this marvelous debut collection. Zehner’s poems chronicle a journey from childhood trauma, where a mother’s flowers are “a cover crop for her madness” (from “The Worst of Winter”) to recovery : “I no longer hate you, mother . . . like the seeds and bulbs of spring, I’m new” (from “English Garden”). The poems in On the Outskirts court nostalgia but never give in to sentimentality as the speaker moves from estrangement to reconciliation to contentment: “You are my philosopher’s stone, / transforming my life into gold” (from “No Separation”). Zehner is an alchemist of words, showing us how golden art can be spun out of leaden experience.
–R.G. Evans, author of Imagine Sisyphus Happy
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NEWS AND MORE:
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Daniel Zehner is the featured poet for the month of August in the Mad Poets Society Local Lyrics Interview blog which is now available on line. The wide ranging interview by poet John Wojtowicz (No Light Sabers in the Kitchen) highlights Daniel’s upcoming chapbook “On the Outskirts” by Finishing Line Press due for release on October 30, 2026. Daniel talks about what drew him to writing poetry, his process for generating new poems and the poets who have influenced him. “On the Outskirts” contains poems that were written independently of one another over a twelve year period. He then realized that they fit the theme of childhood trauma, recovery and beyond recovery. The first poem in the book, “The Worst of Winter,” refers to his mother’s “madness” which is the source of the trauma and damage. Many of the poems deal with the damage, his recovery from that damage and the wonderful relationships he has been blessed with in the later years of his life. Go to www.madpoetssociety.com and hit “Mad Poets Blog” for the verbatim transcript of the interview.
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