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fishmirror
In this enthralling collection, Scott Ferry creates a space between matter and ether where his unbridled imagination leads us to the precipice of what it means to be human. There is a duality to these pieces that both disturbs and delights. Ferry asks big questions, juggles us into an unknown cosmos where “every surface we touch is held together by a wish.” He fills us with “wisps of grace,” takes us outside the quotidian where we find ourselves swimming against the stream. These are beautiful words, spilling wildly from the “model-maker’s breath,” demanding our attention, resonating long after “the constellations are placed back in their cages.” -Lillian Necakov, author of il virus
Shamans are often forged in the fires of Hades, and make no mistake, Scott Ferry is a shaman. With fishmirror, he brings us notes from the other side. It opens with death, and, as the collection progresses, returns us to life. It should be noted that Ferry is a nurse, which uniquely positions him to explore the intersection of science/the body with human experience/spirituality. As we walk between worlds, he is our guide. He shows us how death may bring us relief and release—from flesh, and from the humdrum existences modern life has foisted upon us. Our personal and professional lives are filled with how-to guides, recipes, questionnaires, agendas, shopping lists, job training, avoiding traffic accidents, finding your lost cell phone. (One of the things that elevates these poems to brilliance is structuring many of them as these absurd bureaucratic forms and incidents.) He forces us to ask the question, is this really how we intend to measure our lives? In our skeptical age, spirituality is a somewhat contentious subject—at best, we view it as a metaphor for human potential. Ferry reminds us what is mysterious and divine in us, and the world around us.
-Lauren Scharhag, author of Requiem for a Robot Dog
The poems of Scott Ferry’s fishmirror are hallucinatory, forthright, and authentic. They revel in inventive language, bonding words into hybrid compounds— songtunnel, kelpveins, pearltoothed, fishmirror, and climb, hermit crab-like, into given a multiple choice exam, a cover letter, a grocery list, even a recipe for “Post-Existential-Crisis Crumb Cake.” Ferry transports us on a journey through an improvisational life; he ushers us “inside the epidermis” and “inside the steamwhistle heart” in a harrowing search for the holy.
-Diane Seuss, author of sonnets
Shamans are often forged in the fires of Hades, and make no mistake, Scott Ferry is a shaman. With fishmirror, he brings us notes from the other side. It opens with death, and, as the collection progresses, returns us to life. It should be noted that Ferry is a nurse, which uniquely positions him to explore the intersection of science/the body with human experience/spirituality. As we walk between worlds, he is our guide. He shows us how death may bring us relief and release—from flesh, and from the humdrum existences modern life has foisted upon us. Our personal and professional lives are filled with how-to guides, recipes, questionnaires, agendas, shopping lists, job training, avoiding traffic accidents, finding your lost cell phone. (One of the things that elevates these poems to brilliance is structuring many of them as these absurd bureaucratic forms and incidents.) He forces us to ask the question, is this really how we intend to measure our lives? In our skeptical age, spirituality is a somewhat contentious subject—at best, we view it as a metaphor for human potential. Ferry reminds us what is mysterious and divine in us, and the world around us.
-Lauren Scharhag, author of Requiem for a Robot Dog
The poems of Scott Ferry’s fishmirror are hallucinatory, forthright, and authentic. They revel in inventive language, bonding words into hybrid compounds— songtunnel, kelpveins, pearltoothed, fishmirror, and climb, hermit crab-like, into given a multiple choice exam, a cover letter, a grocery list, even a recipe for “Post-Existential-Crisis Crumb Cake.” Ferry transports us on a journey through an improvisational life; he ushers us “inside the epidermis” and “inside the steamwhistle heart” in a harrowing search for the holy.
-Diane Seuss, author of sonnets
77 pages, Paperback
Published March 10, 2022
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