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EVEN THE DOG WAS QUIET

This collection of poems by Margaret Saraco combines richly crafted nostalgic recollections with contemporary realities that are deeply affecting and resonant. Her masterful wordplay entwines intellect and raw emotion, painting a vivid portrait of everyday life. In this treasure trove of exquisite poetry, “Breaking Waves” shines as a rare gem, capturing the delicate dance between standing alone and needing support with authentic, soul-stirring brilliance. One could argue that Saraco’s verses serve as a powerful reminder to savor genuine and healthy relationships, especially during life’s tempestuous moments. Poetry enthusiasts will enjoy reading “Even the Dog Was Quiet.”  (Host and Producer of the Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio podcast)

“This book is a kind of memoir in poems, a careful recounting and examination of the way Sáraco’s relationships over the course of life have shaped her, and how her memories have sustained and helped her find and make meaning from life. The poems study small interpersonal moments embedded in everyday life and pan back to consider the meaning of a life, and heart, full of thousands of these moments. This is a gorgeous book.” (Tamar Jacobs, Associate Editor, Iron City Magazine, and author of A Man Named Darius Williams with Neon Hemlock Press.)

“Margaret Sáraco’s ekphrastic poetry stirs the roots of our human integrity, our subconscious, and our humanity. It is soulful and searches for the truths within us that we often try to gloss over.” (Dr. Nishi Chawla, writer, academician, and filmmaker.)

“Margaret Sáraco’s dexterity as a poet is boldly on display in Even the Dog Was Quiet. The first three poems take you into the minds of an immigrant couple whose documentation was lost in a fire, a child who cannot understand the language of adults, and a dachshund whose human companion has died. You will feel you know each of them intimately. The whole book is full of little gems based on moments in Margaret’s life or stories about her family. After reading these poems you will understand more about the poet, about the human condition, and about yourself.” (Steve Bloom, New York City based poet, composer, activist, and curator of the Poetry of Protest and Struggle project.)

IF THERE IS NO WIND

Margaret R. Sáraco’s gift is her ability to translate the every day acts of living, into unique, beautiful moments of poetry. This work, which we can find ourselves in, is generous, kind, brilliant, and shot through with a bit of sadness which highlights the moments of joy. Composed of tight language, beautiful images, and resonant sound, If There is No Wind is to be kept close at hand as a companion and guide. —CMarie Fuhrman, co-editor Native Voices

Sáraco’s collection of poems is the result of a deep and empathic listening, with an eye toward detail, often so miniscule and simple, as to be overlooked. The forces of nature with all its inherent beauty and unpredictability merges with dreams, memory, lineage, and inheritance, to create a lens through which to make sense of a world in which joy and suffering exist in a world changed by school shootings and domestic terrorism, but also cognizant of the precious act of waking up and taking another breath.  These poems will make you think and feel, while making you grateful to be alive. —Michelle Reale, Author of Confini: Poems of Refugees in Sicily and Blood Memory: Prose Poems.

What a revelation Margaret Sáraco’s book is! Brilliant, beautiful, and especially comforting. Her words are a gateway to a safe place of imagination and to a world of warm memories. Her poems are recipes on how to live in the natural world and how to move through life. She writes of being emotionally awake and receptive and gives us a guide on how to live in a challenging world. Her “paintings” reveal so many spaces where I want to live, and I truly know that is possible. I have her book in-hand and have read it again and again. Three times so far …—Jim Gwyn, Editor, Lips

Sáraco’s country of poetry goes from the wide expanse of a prose poem like “No Guarantees” to the narrowed focus of grief in “On Hearing of My Mother’s Death.” This is a voice of ordinary speech elevated to a height that allows it to travel great distances and reach many places and people. Reading the entire collection, you hear the music in the call and response of the poems.  A windstorm that blows down “a branch like poetry” and later “presses and pushes against the earth” also shakes a tree’s leaves and “presses them to respond.”  If a freewheelin’ Dylan said that the answer is blowin’ in the wind, Sáraco reminds us that “if there is no wind, there is no answer.”—Kenneth Ronkowitz, Poets Online founder/editor

If There Is No Wind is a book of frank wonder—frank in its clear-eyed assessment of “human cruelty,” asking “What will become of us?”; wonder at the healing beauty of nature, family, art, “the ordinary, the lived in.” In taking all of this on, Margaret R. Sáraco reminds us that “We, the flawed, inherit the earth,” but this news should be as much comfort as indictment. After all, it suggests that “you are not alone,” and that “there can still be great//abundance.” These poems are, in a wounded time, a much-needed salve.—David Ebenbach, author of What’s Left to Us by Evening

If There Is No Wind intertwines human, nature and spirit. Margaret R. Saráco is courageous and wise. These poems are faith. They know strong roots support a journey amid a lifetime’s joy, grief and wonders. I am reminded with the words “…the woods leave me” that there are challenges one faces and we sometimes question our road. Saráco embraces her trials and displays her inner questioning and knowing and remembering. This collection is her gift to us, the earthbound.—Rachelle Parker, author of Together We Remember The Gazelle