Good Dirt

The book is beautiful. I love it. It's a prodigious and wonderful work. I've seen these poems individually, and now, reading them as part of a bigger story brings a luminous kind of life to them. Together, the poems are full of variety, humor, hope, uncertainty, as well as peace that seems to come easy. To me, the recurring visits to the world of dogs symbolize simple joys, and they poignantly unify the book. Throughout, Sandra has a true instinct for closure and a marvelous gift for last lines.

-Kelli Rush, editor, Reynolds American and member, Omega Poets, Winston-Salem

I relish Sandra's lush, wry words and her wit. And I love her perspective, the way she finds humor and meaning, and - I'll say it - beauty in the small things. Life is so much more fun through her eyes.

-Kat Bodrie, author, Toward a Unified Theory of Self and co-editor, Brambles Journal

The poems in Sandra's collection, Good Dirt, speak with a powerful sensory impact. If surprise and delight are the author's intention, she succeeds. An excerpt from her poem "Silly Daffodilly" offers a glimpse: "Add solar juices, / and the cheddar bulbs open / wearing tiny Victrola noses / promising March melodies, tunes uploaded to a puffy cloud / then VRUMM, drowned / by a gas mower's throbbing drone." I love the mischievous, impish undercurrent throughout that incarnates Sandra's joyful and whimsical soul.

-Peter Venable, member, Omega Poets, Winston-Salem