Third-Class Relics

The pleasures provided by Scott Dalgarno's Third-Class Relics are abundant. In evidence are a discerning mind, a musical ear, a witty intellect, and a bruised but open heart.

With precise diction, compelling narratives, and smooth, inviting language, Dalgarno examines a wide array of subjects. Here is a poet at ease with unease. In one poem, he

defines limbo as a place where "Kettle never boils; dog circles / and circles but never lies down." In another, he addresses an "unrealized" zygote this way: "Your not being here / is

everywhere." For me, a good poem both entertains and disturbs, the latter by shaking us from complacency. Scott Dalgarno's book is filled with such poems. Third-Class Relics is a

first-class triumph.

-Andrea Hollander, author of And Now, Nowhere But Here

"There go the swallows / taking it out on the morning," writes Dalgarno, whose collection is a stirring portrayal of a life pulled in to focus. The poems in Third-Class Relics ask us to

reckon with the lyric tension of our lives in the metaphoric borderland of so many kinds of rapture. It arrives with a fresh and clear voice that invites its reader to remember they

are always already a viewer, a visitor, and a voyeur, too.

-Meg Day, author of Last Psalm at Sea Level

Scott Dalgarno finds abundant inspiration from the mystic, Julian of Norwich, the poet, Elizabeth Bishop, the artistry of Jon Batiste, and several coastal redwoods in the Bolling Grove. While he writes a lot of prose, he finds that writing poetry can be an out-of-body experience, occasionally transporting him to a zone where time does not exist and is not age-bound. He lives among firs and dogwoods in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he works for issues of justice. Third-Class Relics was a finalist for the 2024 Sally Albiso Prize. It is his first collection of poems.Scott Dalgarno's website can be found at www.ScottDalgarno.org.

Lana Hechtman Ayers, a former New Yorker who made her way to the Pacific Northwest via a dozen year sojourn in New England, has shepherded over a hundred forty poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and elsewhere. Lana's latest collection, The Autobiography of Rain, is available from Fernwood Press. She lives in Newport, Oregon with her husband and several fur babies. She writes in a room over the garage with a view of the Yaquina river. Say hello at LanaAyers.com