AUTHOR INTERVIEWS & FEATURES
The Southeast Review Online Interview
Valley News Poet Profile
Wikipedia Article
Maine in Print
Women's Quarterly (of the Morning Sentinel, Waterville, ME)
Dartmouth Alumni Magazine
POETRY SAMPLES
PRAISE FOR ANXIOUS MUSIC
Publishers Weekly
“…a voice
remarkable for its confidence and fierceness…her style suggests long
acquaintance with the conventions of intimate, autobiographical 21st-century
verse and a daring all her own.”
Library Journal
“These
poems exhibit a quiet, considered intelligence rare in first collections.
Ossmann…writes of desire tempered by wisdom and self-restraint…throughout lurks
the fear of breaking loose and spinning away, to the point where ‘when we learn
the answers/will we have forgotten/all the questions.’ Recommended.” –Ellen Kaufman
Pleiades
"This
book concerns itself with this territory–a kind of Rorschach, a
shifting of foreground and background and the huge question posed in
many guises of how to contain or embrace or release desire. Ossmann's
best poems have this quality of controlled panic, an intelligence able
to articulate and tolerate alarming paradox." –Rebecca Kaiser Gibson
Poets’ Quarterly
“Ossmann explores life’s many arenas and their attendant
imperfections with the precision of a surgeon and the sharp wit of a polished
conversationalist. Eschewing perfect closure, her poetry achieves a fullness
which matches the range of life as it truly is, from its quotidian depths to
its delightfully soulful surfaces.” —Christina
Cook
Off the Coast
“Her lines are neat, her stanzas often clipped, matching
her musings—that
fine synchronicity between subject and style we look for in the best poetry,
form following feeling and vice-versa.” –Carl Little
Stride Magazine
“It is unusual for me to warm so
swiftly to a collection of poetry as I did to this debut publication by April
Ossmann.” –Alan West
Bangor Daily News
“…uncertainty
is a fascinating reality, and there’s a delight and…a nobility in the impulse
to grapple with it, hopefully resulting in a momentary stay against confusion,
as Frost put it. The poems in Anxious
Music are to be commended for following the inclination, wherever they
lead.” –Dana Wilde
Devaney, Doak & Garrett
Booksellers
“Known in
the industry as an excellent editor, we are not surprised to find Ossmann’s Anxious Music an extremely taut and well
crafted volume.” –Kenny Brechner
www.kingdombks.blogspot.com
“So much
of this poet's language is new and inquiring that I found myself reading often
two or three times through a poem before turning the page… every question is
the start of an unexpected and delicious answer. I'll be reading this
collection again. And again.” –Beth Kanell
www.barrelhousemag.com
“At
her best, Ossmann explores the complexities of loss and desire without
providing us with easy answers…Anxious Music reveals to us that while we
are often at the mercy of our desires, we are seldom in control of them.” –Jennifer Hanks
Amazon.com
“You will
not find literary gamesmanship in Anxious Music. The language is simple and
straightforward but the cumulative effect is mesmerizing.” –S.T.
Email address: aprilossmann@hotmail.com
