A Perfect Day for Semaphore by Holly Day

A Perfect Day for a Semaphore is exactly what I hope to find when searching for a poetry book: interesting thought process, compelling narratives, deep sense of place, depth of mood/tone/emotion. Some books yield only one or two good poems, this one offers an abundant continuity of written graces.

–Rhonda J. Nelson, 2000-2001 Florida Fellow in Poetry

“Beyond the curve at the edge of the world, there is a monster that knows who you are” — the poems in Holly Day‘s new collection brim with stories that chill the bones, hint at Grimm tales and bad choices made long ago, under neon lights and the influence of one too many beers. With an eye for the natural world and a dark sensibility, Day writes songs to discomfit the reader, imagines drowning, envisions wings, breaks the necks of small creatures in a Gothic assemblage of poems with a sense of the inevitable, yet dares to ask, “what if?”

–Julia Park Tracey, Poet Laureate emeritus, Alameda, California

Holly Day‘s A Perfect Day for Semaphore turns like the earth, dark one moment, light the next. Her poems break the crust of soil and blossom, strangely ordinary, and reveal what resides in the subconscious. There is the joy of becoming lovers, having children, and becoming family. Yet while we sleep, the subconscious sends out its slippery vines of doubt and dread. The poems instruct the reader to reject the colorful birds, the dun-colored sparrows that stay constant are the ones to count on and to nourish. Just when a relationship seems doomed, accepted, sleep arrives, and in sleep, the lovers’ bodies gravitate to the embrace, saying how foolish we are to think what we know is the one true answer. Day seems to say the gods of myth gave us stories, but failed to allow us access to all that wisdom, and yet, each of these poems is in itself, a key.

–Jo-Ann Mapson, Los Angeles Times‘ bestselling author of Bad Girl Creek, Solomon’s Oak, and Owen’s Daughter