Sostenuto

Throughout my life I have looked toward language for elevationand found that more potent than gravity. - Sheila E. Murphy Murphy's work has been a lifelong journey to find beauty and a kind of transcendence in life in thought in experience and in language while at the same time including all the complexities difficulties and darkness from which any transcendence must arise. SOSTENUTO a sequence of recent sonnets is certainly no exception and also has a wonderful angularity and edginess an edginess embedded in a richness of diction and consciousness. The poems have a voice a sensibility and a story or narrative current which is fully authentic. Part of that authenticity is sensed in the often cut-up (and at times surrealistic) nature of the writing which is also amazingly smooth and flowing. There are storms understandings and questionings running through these beautiful poems which form true mirrors to the depths and heights of living. - John M. Bennett