On Earth . . .

“These poems grapple with life’s ambiguities, celebrate a long marriage, mourn the death of a son in a poignant and beautiful villanelle, and tell stories: about husband and wife who lose each other in a Monet exhibit; about a balloon trip; and about a trip to Ireland canceled because of COVID-19. Susan Spear has written a collection that is both completely current and totally timeless. She has revealed the human in imago Dei.”


—Jill Peláez Baumgaertner, Wheaton College, emerita





“Nettled by contingency and burnished by pain, Susan Delaney Spear’s poems are firmly, unmistakably terrestrial, though marked by an otherworldly hope—for mercy, redemption. A poet of faith, she understands that in some fundamental sense what happens here ‘on earth . . .’ (and the ellipsis is everything here) is ‘as it is in heaven.’ To this, and to her heartfelt verses, I say amen.”


—David Yezzi, author of More Things in Heaven: New and Selected Poems





“Spear’s book is rich with verbal grace. She presents a full, vibrant life with a measured elegance that can both contain and convey it. The collection gives us a vision of what it means to be attuned to the divine and the beautiful, without ever losing sight of what happens here ‘on earth.’”


—David J. Rothman, former resident poet, Colorado Public Radio





“What can possibly sustain a life that has suffered the unimaginable: the loss of a beloved child? The speaker of these poems, five years past the tragedy, searches for solace in art, nature, faith, writing, yoga, and distance running but finds the greatest comfort in love. No matter whether it’s remembered love, love in the present, or the future of love for a newly engaged daughter, this poet tells us ‘love remains—firm, unchanging matter.’”


—Julie Kane, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, emeritus