The smiling middle-aged lady in the author’s photo on the back of The Motorman’s Daughter isn’t what you might expect from Bombshelter Press – Bob Flanagan is also on their roster. But Bombshelter isn’t a vanity press, if they think she has the chops – she has the chops. With that and a recommendation from Henry Rollins, Sarah Mac Donald could hardly burst onto the LA poetry scene with a higher pedigree.
The poems themselves are often reminiscent of the Romantics. The subject matter speaks of the dailiness of life, its ebb, its flow. Only when the author swigs a Diet Coke are we reminded that we aren’t in an English garden of two centuries ago. Sometimes the free verse takes on an almost Beat rhythm. It is a rhythm you can walk with. Whether through her garden or through her dreams, it is worth taking a walk with Sarah Mac Donald.
Valentine’s Day 2011
I woke up this morning hearing the crows
scrabble across the roof
One of them pecked at my skylight
I got up and looked out the French doors
The sun was just coming up,
backlighting my garden
The sky was blue with white clouds
And the mockingbird was on top of the telephone pole,
singing his morning prayers
-Sarah Mac Donald
