Two Grains In Time

Martha Deborah Hall's Two Grains In Time is a journey from innocence through loss toward wisdom. These are poems of careful observation. The voice is direct, intimate, certain. The title poem refers to the narrator's identical twin sister and closest companion who predeceased her, but who she knows will be waiting for her at the end of her life with "a cup of tea in hand." All of the senses are sumptuously attended to in this rich first collection by a poet of mature sensibilities. Two Grains In Time is a poetry collection well worth all your time.

Lana Hechtman Ayers, Publisher, Concrete Wolf Poetry Chapbook Series




If for Stephen Spender the eye is a "delicate wanderer, / Drinker of horizon's fluid line," the eye in Martha Deborah Hall's poems drinks its fill in more intimate territory, closer to home, closer to the proverbial bone. Before a child on a swing embarks on her adventure, she notices that her father had set "galvanized bolts into the apple tree." When she comes back down to earth, the "Knots under the sides of the cherry plank seat" have kept their sturdy tension. As this collection swings through the arc of tragedies and harmonies of a life, Hall's ever-vigilant eye reconnoiters a misfit yet glorious world full of sometimes troubling and very nearly always gratifying surprises.

Tom Daley, Poetry Instructor, Boston Center for Adult Education




Seldom does one find a poet who explores the complexities of life events with such directness, while maintaining that twist of poetic whim. Both the courageous honesty, and the willingness to proceed through simple pathways to profound discernment, draw the reader into the accessible, and somehow familiar, world. I find Two Grains In Time to be an extremely enjoyable journey, landscaped with the intrinsic cleansing quality of truth.

Jerri Hardesty, Publishing Editor, New Dawn Unlimited, Inc. Publications