Valiant by Marci Vogel

“Valiant has the reach and reckoning and gravitas, the subterranean interlock of story and theme, of a much longer work. Its fearless awareness, of present and past, is at one with the art of its making: Marci Vogel’s prowling formal restlessness is twinned by playful hyper-alertness to diction, anchored in passing LA-quotidian detail and in the recurrent echoes of myth, religion and personal loss. This book has wings—not the wax wings that keep entering the conversation, but victorious ones: more like the wings of the Phoenix.”

—Sarah Maclay, author of Music for the Black Room

The poems in Marci Vogel’s debut collection “Valiant form a garland of courage. Whether it is a father’s suicide, ice cream melting in the car, dreams that refuse fruition, or traveling on the 405 Freeway, the poet-heart here knows it takes bravery not just to look but to see life’s harder, irreconcilable edges. “Is there a question you are holding? Ask it now?” Vogel queries with such fully embodied compassion and sweetness that we want to travel with her. This is a book that claims Los Angeles the place (the Getty, LAX, freeways, and movies) as fodder for spiritual inquiry. The holding note of the collection is the lost father; his absence moves through poems in tremolo. Marci Vogel’s poetic anvil has hit the mark: Valiant sparks with Light and insight.”
––Gretchen Mattox, author of Buddha Box

Rating:  ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]