Beech River Books

Brad Marion is a teacher and publisher as well as a writer. His books of poetry include Working on Becoming Invisible (2024), The Forest for the Trees (2010), Art and Desperation (2007), and Still the Thrush Sings (2003). He lives with his wife Dawn, an artist and illustrator, in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire.

Working on Becoming Invisible  (Beech River Books, 2024)   is a collection of poems from 2010 through 2023, arranged in seven sections: “Noah's Lifeline” is a series of poems about a sailor who somehow survives the disasters of his age and finds himself relocated in a place where little of the world in which he grew up in remains; the ones in “Rimless Vessel” are romantic; “Saints and Angels in Constant Pursuit” shows where creativity intersects the mystical and divine; the poems in “Digging Potatoes” involve gardening and a life of simplicity; “View from on Top of the Elephant” deals with the pilgrimage from the everyday hustle and bustle to the comtemplative and esoteric; those in “House with Almost Empty Closets” propose sustainability and ecological responsibility as an alternative to materialism and the excesses of materialism; “Pastures over Slate” present verse that is about personal experiences and life in northern New England. Each section also features an illustration by Dawn Marion.

The Forest for the Trees  (Wind in the Timothy Press, 2010)   is a collection of poems from 2007 through 2009, arranged in six sections: “The Ardor and the Appetites” deals with love, art, and physical attraction; “Magdalen's Hair” deals with sanctity and spirituality; “The Forest for the Trees” deals with man's place in the natural world; “The Well” deals with man's connection to the mystical world; “The Trick to Falling” deals with the nature of personal experience; “Soup du Jour” deals with connections between the fantastical and everyday life.

Art and Desperation   (Wind in the Timothy Press, 2007)   is a collection of poems from 2004 through 2006, arranged in seven sections: “Composing Adjectives,” “Heaven Must Smell of Ginger,” “Dew and Dharma,” “Art and Desperation,” “A Blip on the Eternal Radar,” “The Data Takes a Whirl,” and “The Romance in That Dalliance.”

Still the Thrush Sings  (NH Trillium Books / Writers Publishing Cooperative, 2003)   is a collection of poems from 2000 through 2003, arranged in six sections: “Powerless Prayers,” “In Springtime Won't You Burn Your Straw Flowers,” “Ripe,” “Road Kill,” “The Dancers,” and “With Sheets Turned Down.”