Book Review: Singing the Forge by G H Mosson

G. H. Mosson is the author of five prior books and chapbooks of poetry, including Questions of Fire (Plain View Press), Season of Flowers and Dust (Goose River Press), and Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time (Finishing Line Press). Two of the chapbooks are collaborative, Heart X-rays & Simultaneous Revolutions (PM Press). His poetry has appeared in The Tampa Review, California Quarterly, The Hollins Critic, The Potomac Review, Smartish Pace, Lines & Stars, Free State Review, SurVision of Ireland, and across the U.S.

“Through a series of beautiful meditative lyrics, Mosson links childhood and adulthood, journey and reckoning, memory and wonder. A humane and earnest poet, Mosson is as much attuned to ‘songless streets of Baltimore’ as to ‘trees’ unnamed relation to the world.’ He captures this attunement with carefully measured language and impressive precision. Many poems are probing observations of places and people, rendered in verbal landscapes revealing his debt to visual artists. Hans Hofman, Philip Guston, Henry Moore are three invoked in this volume. The poems in Singing the Forge create a philosophy of life centered around the idea of harmony with the universe – even if harmony’s always at the verge of disintegration. They should be paid attention to and cherished for this reason.”
-Piotr Gwiazda, Professor of English, Univ. of Pittsburgh

“Mosson’s poems are magical, memorable and meticulous, speaking to the powerful pull of locales and weathers and loves, yet get pinned to the memories of a reader with lines like these, spoken by a physician in his old age: ‘The nursing home is out there like a shark/ that has swallowed so many of my patients one by one.’ Give a copy to someone you love but be sure to keep one for yourself.”-Clarinda Harris, Professor Emeritus, Towson University
-Piotr Gwiazda, Professor of English, Univ. of Pittsburgh

Review

G.H. Mosson’s Singing the Forge is a contemplative and richly textured poetry collection that meditates on creation and the shaping forces of time, memory, and place. It’s a book that doesn’t simply present poems; it invites readers into a dialogue about how we are formed by what we build, love, and lose. The collection moves fluidly between the personal and the historical, exploring the idea of “forging” as an act of both endurance and transformation.

What I found most compelling about Mosson’s work is his ability to weave lyrical introspection with a painter’s eye for detail. Each poem feels sculpted, deliberate, and yet brimming with emotion. His imagery, whether drawn from the “songless streets of Baltimore” or from the elemental beauty of nature, transforms the ordinary into something almost sacred. There’s a rhythm to his lines that mirrors the forge itself: heat, strike, cool, and shape again. It’s poetry that asks you to slow down and feel the subtle music of thought.

Throughout the book, Mosson balances philosophy and tenderness. The poems meditate on memory, childhood, work, and the constant tension between chaos and harmony. You sense an awareness that life itself is a form of art, ever unfinished, ever reshaped by our hands and hearts. This awareness gives the collection its emotional pulse, turning each piece into an intimate act of reckoning and renewal.

Singing the Forge is a beautifully crafted, powerful collection that rewards patience and reflection. It’s for readers who find comfort in language that hums with meaning and for those who believe poetry still has the power to make sense of our shared becoming.

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