My new poetry book has been published!!

 

Thank you to Jason Ryberg at Spartan Press for producing such a beautiful book.

It is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and your local bookstore and also from me, of course.

The cover artwork is by Martha Vogel.

PRAISE FOR EVERYTHING IS RISING

“Everything is Rising by Diane Vogel Ferri, is an autobiographical exploration revealing many truths of life. These poems are songs of pain, love, and recovery that portray what women have faced during their lifetime. Diane explored the many definitions of beauty, love, and relationships, uncovering life’s complexity. She presented the reader in Everything is Rising with a perspective born of endurance and buoyed by hope that’s destined to inspire.” 

Steve Thomas

Author of Strength of Flowers

 

"Poetry and fiction are first cousins. When I read good poetry, it's like meeting kin after a long separation; bonds forged in youth reveal themselves to be as warm and strong as ever. Diane Vogel Ferri's poetry is a family reunion of the heart."

Daniel Bell

Author of Adrift and Dead in River Valley

“Diane Vogel Ferri’s beautifully crafted poems balance age with youth, regret with hope, clarity with confusion and power with powerlessness. Her poems look forward and upward at a time when so many are stalled in their isolated present. Best of all, Diane’s shares her vision through poems that can look directly into the face of what troubles us, without losing sight of goodness and beauty.”

Gail Bellamy, author of Cleveland Christmas Memories and Cleveland Food Memories

"The poems in "Everything is Rising" are vivid in imagery and deep in emotion and nostalgia.  Diane takes you to places that you may not want to go, but you are a better person by having been there.

Barbara Marie Minney, author of If There's No Heaven.

“Memory is the mother of all wisdom” according to Aeschylus. Such sagacity stirs in Everything Is Rising. Using what the poet calls “the fossil of my voice,” she distills the past’s influence, waking us to a world where “blood tastes like creation.” Let these pages carry you with a pulse that “has never beat gently” and on “into morning light.”

Laura Grace Weldon

2019 Ohio Poet of the Year

My Favorite Books of 2021- for what it's worth

 My Favorite Books of 2021

(in a general order)

Fiction:

1. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr -  My all-time favorite book (so far) might be Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See and this one is nothing like it. I am blown away by an author who can weave a story over centuries and somehow knit them together at the end. 
2. A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet - A brilliant allegory of climate change that depicts the differing attitude between generations. Please do not take it literally!!!
3. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins - While reading this you live the terror of escaping violence to come to America. If the first chapter doesn’t leave you breathless, I don’t know what will.
4. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles - I love stories set in the 1950s. This one takes you on a cross-country escapade with a great cast of characters.
5. Life Sciences by Joy Sorman - A teenager is afflicted with mysterious pain and spends years trying to find medical help, and the devastating affect on her life.
6. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. Twin sisters in the south - one lives out her life as an African American, the other leaves to pass as white. Fascinating.
7. Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter (fellow Clevelander)- Girl’s lives are determined by the map of freckles and marks on their body. I found this book completely original and beautifully written.
8. Bewilderment by Richard Powers. The author of another of my very favorite books, The Overstory, gives a touching and timely story of a father and son. 

Non-Fiction

1. No Time Like the Future by Michael J. Fox. I read tons of memoirs and this is one of the best ever. He is funny, charming, honest and a great writer to boot. You’ll love him even more.
2. A Promised Land by Barack Obama - Do I need say more? If he didn’t want to lead the free world he could have just been an author.
3. Untamed by Glennon Doyle - If you don’t relate to something in this book you can’t possibly be a woman. I wish every young woman could read it before she starts out in life.
4. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson - Incredibly researched book about how caste systems, especially America, have shaped history. I thought I knew a lot, but this still opened my eyes. 
5. Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker - The havoc and tragedy a family goes through while living with multiple siblings with mental illness.
6. The Anthropocene Review by John Green. Essays that tell of how humans have shaped this planet. Fascinating.
7. In the Dream House by Carmen Machado - Not for the faint of heart but if you like spectacular and original writing give it a try.