by Senior Editor
Mary Bast
Bacopa Literary Review 2018's Poetry Prize winner, Patrick Synan, has published a chapbook that includes his prize-winning poem, "
Outside the Clinic." From his publisher:
It is with great pleasure that The Orchard Street Press announces the publication of The Walls Around the Ring, the first chapbook from Patrick Synan, an exciting young poet from Watertown, Massachusetts.
Mr. Synan, who has previously had work appear in Crosswinds and Bacopa Literary Review, first came to our attention in Orchard Street's Poetry Contest last year. Two of his submitted poems were selected for inclusion in Quiet Diamonds, our annual poetry journal.
We were struck then, as we were with all the other poems in this new collection, by the freshness of the language, the imagery. Patrick paints with new brushes and presents life and experience in an exciting and insightful way. David Dragone, editor of Crosswinds, notes of Synan: "it becomes clear almost immediately that this poet is not satisfied with mere poetic descritpion or good crafting" as "he takes us through an exmination of what one might call the 'geometry of the heart.'"
J.N. Fishhawk of Bacopa Literary Review writes: "The Walls Around the Ring offers clear-eyed descriptions of personal and social experience couched in accessible but boldly deployed, vital language."
In the poem "First Day," Synan writes:
The pen goes around again
For the students to draw lines
Between their hometowns
And their classmates' hometowns,
The final shape is an imperfect
Circle, whose dips and curves
Record moments within moments,
A handful of facts that alter us
To learn the infinity of others.
The Walls Around the Ring is available for $12 (check payable to Orchard Street) at The Orchard Street Press; P.O. Box 280; Gates Mills, Ohio 44040. Please call us at 330-264-7733 if you have any questions or would like additional information.
