Outside the Big-Paned Windows

Beneath the scintillating surfaces of Greg Maddigan's poems, a reader encounters poems of faith and doubt, of a nation broken and people that may be made whole again only by love; these are poems driven by the "whorling imprints of privation," as well as easeful bliss; by the urge to weep in our "post solstice" or linger with a beloved among coffee and birdsong or, in the brutally contrasting energies of this book, lash out by "punching someone in the larynx." Outside the Big-Paned Windows explores love (domestic and erotic), sensuality (of the body and the natural world), and renewal. Even if darkness lurks just outside our windows, we must hope that in the harbor "all the boats / are still floating." One of Maddigan's poems asserts that words matter; we should be glad for this faith. We should be glad for this book.

-Tod Marshall, Washington State Poet Laureate (2016-2018), author of Bugle (Canarium Press, 2014), The Tangled Line (Canarium Press, 2009), and Dare Say (University of Georgia Press, 2002).