“In Night Visions, Marsha M. Nelson threads the cycle of the outer world — Things die in winter — through the cycle of the spirit-self — The heart is . . . breakable — with the ability to rebound. This collection is evidence of her deep-seated spiritual roots and how her faith has given her wings to fly above difficult things and rest on branches of victory.”
—Loretta Diane Walker, Author of Word Ghetto
and In This House
“If the heart is the meeting point between body and soul, this book of poems is a tender yet insistent record of what happens when an attentive pilgrim journeys there and experiences the heart’s turbulence and beatitude. It is a place of tension and grace, a place of separation and conjoining. Reading Night Visions, we experience first hand that part of us which responds to the gravitational forces of material existence, and is beguiled by its lilt; and at the same time, that ‘other’ part of us which seeks to soar heavenward on transcendant wings. “Keep your heart open through everything,” says Rumi, in the epigaph to the author’s poem “There is Purpose in Pain.” In poem after poem, Marsha Nelson exposes the contours of doing just that.”
—George Wallace,
Writer in Residence, Walt Whitman Birthplace
“Marsha Nelson’s poems, in her new poetry book, Night Visions, journey through the sacred and profane, sacraments and secular life. I am especially mesmerized by the dark language reminiscent of Robert Frost’s in her poem “Rebirth,” where “Winter came fierce this year, / its frigid fingers gripping.” And who cannot identify with the sadness expressed in “I Thought it was Love,” in which “When lighter days morph / into meaningless nights, / it’s like sunshine turning into rain”? Not coincidentally, this is the poem that won her the first place award in the Nassau County Poet Laureate’s 2016 contest. Marsha has a unique poetic voice and presence that has matured greatly since she was my student in the early part of the twenty-first century, during which time she published her chapbook, All Rise.”
—Lynn Cohen, Associate Professor of English, Suffolk County
Community College, Author of Dreams and Dreamers
“In Night Visions, Marsha M. Nelson uses her spiritual voice to assess the material world around her: “Moon trails me by night,/clarity and truth by day.” She is acutely aware of how the physical and spiritual worlds collide and affect us kinetically: “Kin to the universe, /ancient as time./Power connects us.” Her Israel poems both intrigued and transported me back to where I: “Walk the rugged stone path...”/ “In front of the Western Wall.” Each of these special poems is an ode to the remarkable land that is Israel. Her poem “Yad Vashem” is a tribute to the memory of all fallen Holocaust victims: “Lambs in the embracing arms of Janusz Korczak, /now serving his ghetto orphans in the afterlife.” Night Visions is a must read.”
—Lana Bakhash
Co-founder of the Babylonian Jewish Center in Great Neck
