The poetry of Fermata, like the pause or hold in music which the word signifies, conjures the audible spaces between notes and the suspended moment. As the author puts it, this is “terse but lateral but lyrical writing.” Her words “are always on the threshold of becoming solid entities. In Fermata, the pitched sound, held indefinitely or paused indefinitely, is the mind feeling the restless body, the migrations of geese or memory.”

DENNISON SMITH is a poet, playwright and novelist, as well as an actor and director. Her work has been performed and published in England, Ireland, Canada and the United States. Her first novel, Scavenger, was also presented in play form as Desert Story. She is the author of two books of poetry, Anon Necessity and Fermata. Originally from Chicago and Vermont, Dennison Smith is now a Canadian citizen who splits her time between a small island in British Columbia and Norwich, England, where she is pursuing her PhD and teaching creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

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