Thump and other poems by Mark Madigan

Mark Madigan invites his readers into the poems in “Thump” with tantalizing narratives set in cities throughout Europe, always surprising us with unexpected subjects, characters, scenes, and images. Traveling from the beginning of each poem to the end, the reader experiences the poet paying homage to moments of joy and pain, each needing the other to make us human.  We are comforted by the dance of an innocent child in one poem, a baseball hat in another, and the possibility that artists and their subjects just might be immortal. We are simultaneously challenged by poems brilliantly discomforting that take us inward to subtle instances of oppression, insensitivity, loss, fear, and mortality. Mark’s poems are complex, his voice gentle, his themes wise. They are the work of an artist who pays attention and asks his readers to pay attention also.

–Maureen Morehead, author of a number of poetry books, including The Melancholy Teacher, and Late August Blues: The Daylily Poems.  She served as the Poet Laureate of Kentucky for 2011-2012.