Because A MONTH OF SOMEDAY doesn’t waste a word, I’m tempted to quote lavishly from these wry, economical, limpidly attentive urban observations recorded during the most frightening month early in the pandemic. But I won’t. Every poem here merits quoting—and rereading. Gerald Wagoner’s eye misses nothing; his quiet voice is a chorus of one that reaches beyond self to his city. This is a book that remembers, and also a book to remember. Read it.—Rachel Hadas
Strolling daily through altered and stunned Brooklyn neighborhoods in A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, Gerald Wagoner is our perceptive weatherman and curious guide to the monstrous first April of New York City’s pandemic, where “Mary Shelley, anime monster in her pocket, gathers fresh flowers to toss down a well.” Wagoner maps the missing city and its transformed condition that includes us, in reverent lyrics and vivid micro narratives, with a keen and attentive negative capability.
—Amy Holman
Gerald Wagoner is a poet, teacher, and visual artist. His poems have appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, BigCityLit, Blue Mountain Review, Book of Matches, Cathexis Northwest Press, Coffin Bell, Helix, Maryland Literary Review, Night Heron Barks, October Hill, Right Hand Pointing, Shot Glass, The Lake, What Rough Beast, and Umbrella Factory, as well as in the Brownstone Poets 2022 Anthology, edited by Patricia Carragon. Born in Eastern Oregon, Wagoner went to college in Montana, then headed east and earned an MFA in sculpture at SUNY Albany. He settled in New York City where, after teaching K–6 students as a Studio in a School artist in residence, he went to work for the Board of Education teaching art, language arts, and English as a second language. After retiring from the Board of Ed in 2017, Gerald returned to his youthful passion for poetry. As a sculptor, he has had dozens of shows from 1981 to the present throughout the country and around the world. A MONTH OF SOMEDAY is his debut poetry collection.
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