Beyond the Dawn, Poems by Alissa Sammarco

Beyond the Dawn by Alissa Sammarco is the journey of two lovers as they travel from the honeymoon into an unsettled domesticity. Love binds them as they face their own frailties and inconsistencies both alone and together. Each poem is a view into the heart of a lover. Each poem builds on the last with conversational and, at times, lyrical imagery and beauty. You will want to hold them in your arms, and you will want to tear the poems out and send them home.

Sample Poems by Alissa Sammarco

“Lean, lush, stirring and sensuous are some of the adjectives that come to mind as I feast on the lines in Alissa Sammarco’s Beyond the Dawn.Both on the page and read aloud, her intuitive poems are a delight. What a first-rate debut collection!”— John Burroughs, US Beat Poet Laureate 2022-2023.

“Beyond the Dawn, Alissa Sammarco’s debut poetry collection, reads like a novella-in-verse. In brief, image-based poems she shows the trajectory of a relationship, from windswept abandon to an uneasy domesticity where, ‘Not a word slips between tongue and teeth, / only sips of coffee, like the T-shirt in which you sleep, now ragged.’ Sammarco brings her story alive in these musical, well-drawn poems of love and loss.”—Pauletta Hansel, Cincinnati Poet Laureate 2016-2018

“In poems as picturesque as any postcard you could send, Alissa Sammarco invites us to a love story in short poems that are tactile and dexterous. These poems make you feel as if they have been dashed off in the breathless haste of arriving and departing. They are a honeymoon, a morning in a beloved coffee shop, a kiss. You can read this collection of poems over or over, but I think they would love to be ripped out and sent around the world.”—Christopher McCurry

“Alissa Sammarco’s poetry has a simple and particular beauty. It is the beauty we find in a smile, a tear, or one of Chopin’s nocturnes. It is at time conversational, but it always has a spark both magical and poetic. Like some great poets, she has the ability to turn the ordinary into unique and communicates complex human emotions in straight forward free verse. Love is at the center of her work, and with love comes acceptance and beauty. In Alissa’s poems there is always something unexpected, a turn that keeps us on our toes, engaged as reader and ready to enjoy the beauty of poetry.”—Nicasio Urbina, PhD, Dept. of Romance Languages and Literature, University of Cincinnati.

“In Alissa Sammarco’s debut poetry collection, Beyond the Dawn, spare poems conjure great moments of passion, resilience, and remembrance—singular yet universally relatable moments. Allusions to past trauma (‘You guarded me from blows/fallen so long ago...’) are couched in poems that demonstrate the healing power of love. Indeed, this poet’s vibrant images of romantic love (‘The bourbon on your tongue/tastes sweet like Christmas oranges./With each taste/I am consumed by you.’) evoke the bracing intimacy that can bring freedom from the past. This poet’s willingness to be vulnerable draws the reader into this work. A lover’s words may ‘fade/like shadows’ after their night together has passed, but, in the end, the speaker shows us how—by carrying love forward—we ‘will have wings.’”—Ellen Austin-Li

“In Beyond the Dawn, Alissa reveals love as tentative, tender, erotic, and enduring. She shows us how love can be a force for the sweetest and most powerful metamorphosis from a mere person to a beloved.” — J. Patrick Kelly

Alissa Sammarco is an attorney who was drawn home to the Ohio River Valley after years in both the West and the South. Her poems draw images from daily life that speak to the heart of life. Her work has been published in Orchard Street Press’ Quiet Diamonds, Sheila Na Gig Online, Black Moon Magazine, Change Seven, But There was Fire in the Distance (Workhorse Press), Evening Street Review, Main Street Rag, Hags on Fire, Stone Canoe and the online arts journal, AEQAI. Her website is http://www.alissasammarco.com.

ISBN: 978-1625494429, 40 pages

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Also by Alissa Sammarco:

I See Them Now