Quiet Diamonds 2024 is the seventh edition of the Orchard Street Press’ annual poetry journal. This year, it includes 40 poems selected from the more than 800 individual pieces submitted to the 2024 Orchard Street Press Poetry Contest. As in previous years, this collection has assembled some remarkable work by poets from across America.
Thoughts on Quiet Diamonds 2024
“From the quiet gems of the poems which give this collection its title to the “madness in flesh” that animates the award-winner, this collection includes work from widely-published as well as newer poets. The natural world is here from the arresting image of a great blue heron to a small lizard which almost no one notices and daffodils that “gulp” sunlight in February while white hibiscus “flares into fireworks.” One speaker contemplates the crematorium at Terezin while another celebrates “new discovery of love every day.” Inevitably, one poem tells us, “time picks the bones of us all,” but in another an ancient pen searches for words to arrive, “like a book waiting / for someone to open pages.” This collection is well worth opening and reading.”
Deborah Fleming, author of Earthrise and Resurrection of the Wild
“Each poem in Quiet Diamonds 2024 displays both craftsmanship and depth despite a wide diversity of styles and subjects. Several poets hit the spot for me: Lew Forester has a fine ear and vision to match. In “Moonlight and Ashes, he whispers of the tenuous webs between us: “ghosts / in the smoke, ash lingering,” The two poems by Frank H. Coons impressed me with their natural imagery and precise language. There are also many excellent short poems here, such as those by Ben Onachila, Jennifer Phillips, Adrian S. Potter, and M.S. Rooney. “I Slowed My Pace” by Mark Rich is a highly compressed little gem. I recommend this satisfying collection to all discerning poetry readers everywhere.
Eric Greinke, author, poet, and editor
Quiet Diamonds 2024 is available online or via the mail from:
The Orchard Street Press
P.O. Box 280
Gates Mills, OH 44040
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orchpress.com (web)
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