Quick to Bolt Poems

Quick to Bolt is a collection of poems that celebrates the sense of mystery, wonder, and comfort that is integral to the natural world as well as relations with others. The poems capture those moments when the beauty in nature arrests us, and we must look or listen very closely. Simultaneously, many of the poems bring an awareness that this wonder is fleeting; hence the title, Quick to Bolt. When that awareness becomes embodied in our beings, how then do we keep wonder alive, and not grieve its passing? That is a central question the poems wrestle with, but do not fully answer.

Mary Fister teaches writing and literature at the University of Hartford, and has for over thirty years. Her family has roots in Vermont that go all the way back to the DAR, but she was born in the Midwest when her Dad started his first job, and so she will forever be a “ flatlander.” She earned an MFA from the University of Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Ploughshares, The Massachusetts Review, Tar River Poetry, and Volt among many others. Her chapbook, Provenance of the Lost was published by Finishing Line Press. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.