More About On Shifting Shoals:

“I love the humor, the finesse, the wisdom in Joanne Durham’s On Shifting Shoals. Her evocative language immerses us in every aspect of the beach town where she lives. We are up early ‘…to watch…/yolk spreading across the sky,/nourishing us more than anything/scrambled up in kitchens.’ She goes head-to-head with a man carping about ‘a creepy old guy’ digging through garbage at 6 a.m… Deeply aware of the environmental perils facing the ocean… Durham’s brain is wise, her heart supple. Read her and clap for joy.” —Dannye Romine Powell, Author, In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver

“ The poems in On Shifting Shoals feel as cleansing as the ocean, as essential and elemental as water itself. Joanne Durham urges us ‘to listen/between roar and purr,’ and to ‘savor’ those in-between moments of observation and close attention she brings shimmering to life on every page. I could not be more grateful for her deep presence in this work, and in the world.” - James Crews, Poet and Editor of The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy

“Joanne Durham brings the personal and the intimate to her keen observational poems of the natural world…Durham’s poems compel us to marvel, and feel deeply, about the world around us.” - Georgia Heard, Co-author, A Field Guide to the Heart: Poems of Love, Comfort, and Hope; founding member of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.

Review by Hedaya Hasan on Sundress Publications, July 2024

Review by Cynthia Hahn at Highland Park Poetry, August 2023

Podcast on Line Break - reading 5 poems from On Shifting Shoals, June 2023

Interview about On Shifting Shoals at One Minnesota Crone, April 2023

Interview on Her View Friday from Yellow Arrow Journal, April 2023

Video reading, Parkland Poets, April 2023

Origin Stories, Gyroscope, May 2023 (reading of poem)

Storyteller of the Week, June 2023

Autumn Sky Poetry Daily - Saturday Book Feature, September 2023

Sample Poems