Spells & Other Ways of Flying

Barbra Nightingale is full of vulnerability, smarts, and sometimes hilarity in Spells & Other Ways of Flying. She brings her witchy poetry powers to these verses of both difficult and wonderful loves. Her fortuitous last name, perfect for a poet of flight, guides us through a delightful series about birds ending with a ghazal, "A Watch of Nightingales." Barbra is a poet with a wild imagination and a wild heart and, quite possibly, wings!

-Denise Duhamel, Author of Second Story

Barbra Nightingale's poetry, like her name, sings with life; a true bard who records emotional history though verse-song. Her poems resound with the truths and plenitudes of the human condition.

-Richard Blanco, Author of How to Love a Country

Spells & Other Ways of Flying is a collection of wry and wise poems, as far-flung as they are probing. These poems trace "our various angers"; they honor "the endless rain / that falls inside [our] heart[s]." By the time our speaker confides in us, "Nothing I ever did was safe, / nothing was ever in vain," we don't just believe her-we applaud.

-Julie Marie Wade, Author of Skirted