You can order Safe as Lightning via any of the following links:
Your local bookstore (the best option!)
Bookshop
Barnes&Noble
Amazon
Rootstock Publishing
Awards & News
“You Would Have Loved This” was a Runner Up for the Spoon River Poetry Review’s 2022 Editors’ Prize Contest.
“Poem of the World” received an Honorable Mention in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid 2021 Poetry Contest from Winning Writers. See here.
Scudder was a Finalist for the 2021 Lascaux Prize in Poetry for 2 poems, “Poem of the World” and “Gratitude.” See here.
— A recent blog review of “Poem of the World” can be found here.
** Safe as Lightning has been awarded Best Poetry Book of 2020 by the Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE). And was the runner-up for Book of the Year. See here.
** Kirkus Reviews has included Safe as Lightning as one of their featured “Indie” books in the November 15, 2020 “Best Books of 2020” issue. See here on page 250.
** Both Bear Pond Books (in Montpelier) and Literary North (on Instagram) have included Safe as Lightning on their “holiday shopping picks” lists.
Safe as Lightning is a Bestseller!!
So pleased to learn that Safe as Lightning was in the top 10 bestseller at Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vermont for the month of July 2020!! Check it out here!!
ADVANCE PRAISE
“In one of the myriad lovely and cogent poems in Safe as Lightning, Scudder Parker writes:
I used to understand so many things.
Now everything surprises me;
anger shows up on my doorstep
like an orphan.
Sadness is a thread of light
I try to pick off the carpet.
There is nothing
I am qualified to rescue.
I am learning to be patient.
The verse is deft, the observation meticulous, as it is throughout this wonderful collection. To the emotions cataloged in this passage, I would add the whole range of human responses, for the poet encounters and limns each and all. And, though the final stanza above reflects his commendable humility, I take issue with it: Scudder Parker is a conservator: he ‘rescues’ so much in Safe as Lightning that the reader is challenged to take it all in. He or she must learn to be patient too.”
— Sydney Lea, Vermont Poet Laureate 2011-2015 and author of Here
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“Scudder Parker writes musically with ‘no irritable reaching’ toward quotidian beauty. With Buddha-like patience and attention toward such immense particulars as the peonies, corms, and gladiolas in his garden, he testifies to what he calls ‘some shy part of me' [that] is always sitting…in sun…on this cold porch…no wisdom, no plan; full of psalms, no notion who I’m singing to.’ In poem after poem, Parker divines by receiving, with the result of apprehending the cosmos in the smallest things. ‘The poem of the world reveals itself / like a doe’s hoof tapping ice till she can drink,’ he opines. Such lyrical perspicacity pervades his poems with true antinomies that surprise and enlighten as personal revelations that resonate with gentle, universal appeal.”
— Chard deNiord, Vermont Poet Laureate 2015-2019 and author of In My Unknowing
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“Anyone reading Scudder’s poems knows how special it feels to be home in Vermont. One can read and re-read them and feel the comfort of home.”
— U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy
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“Here is a voice accessible, yet elegant. There is no pretense, no agenda. Fully aware of past and future, of dangers, regrets and loss, these poems baptize the now, the exquisite temporary, with time and attention, and cause the reader to cherish their own life in fresh ways. In this decade of violence and division, these poems believe in life, in people doing what they can to care for the earth and each other. Listening to Scudder Parker’s voice, full of tenderness, humor and humility, ‘There is nothing/ I am qualified to rescue.’ I felt rescued. Reading Safe as Lightning I felt hopeful, encouraged, and, for a time, safe.”
— Diane Swan, author of The Other Wish
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“Scudder Parker’s poems have a Vermont flavor. He describes the world he lives in and adds his personal philosophy. The poems allow us to see nature in a different light, and reflect on the meaning of life.”
— Governor Madeleine M. Kunin, author of Coming of Age, My Journey to the Eighties
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“People who think of Scudder Parker as a former minister, Vermont legislator, and political activist who, ‘by the way,’ writes poetry will have to think again after reading his beautiful debut collection, Safe as Lightning. This is the work of a poet who deserves the name, a poet of broad range and deep sensibility. Among his many subjects and themes, one of the most prominent is that of gratitude, ‘a different eye that opens— / unnerving in its great permissions.’ It was certainly the emotion I felt after reading his book.”
— Garret Keizer, author of The World Pushes Back
PRESS REVIEWS
”Parker’s sense of peace and determination to savor life are contagious….an enchanting collection. Tenderly observant and rewarding poetry.”
— Kirkus (Starred) Review
Review
“This poem by Scudder Parker feels very relevant these days when home and place has become ever significant, when so many have been uprooted or displaced because of life changes or the desire to be closer to family in these challenging times.”
— The Barre Montpelier Times-Argus, November 28, 2020
Review by Susan Jefts of the poem Recognize
(also appeared in the Addison Independent and Rutland Herald newspapers)
”[Scudder Parker] often sketches a depiction of the place or event, then goes on to explore or ruminate on his subject, pushing through the surface to give a sense of the deeper structures and issues beneath: the divine hiding in the ordinary.”
— VTDigger, June 25, 2020
Review by Tom Slayton
”[T]he entire volume resonates with deep beauty, reflecting Parker’s awareness as well as his skills as a writer.”
— The Barre Montpelier Times-Argus, July 4, 2020
Review by Marjorie Ryerson
”This is skillfully crafted verse, worthy of comparison with the best poets.”
— The Bridge, July 14, 2020
Review/Interview by George Longenecker
”Safe as Lightning … is … an authentic, unpretentious expression of rural Vermont, brimming with gratitude and wonder, warmth and optimism.”
— Seven Days, September 9, 2020
Review by Benjamin Aleshire
“[L]uminous, wry, wide-ranging verse. . . [T]his volume belongs on every Vermonter’s bookshelf.”
— Shelburne News, October 1, 2020
Review by Jill Allen
“Mr. Parker writes about the natural world in fine and loving detail, but with a refreshing lack of cloying reverence. . . The poems convince me that Mr. Parker understands, as newcomers to Vermont don’t always understand, that the landscape we love so much is not the product of some grand ecological design but of neglect. And that neglect, however benign, was in turn the product of grinding poverty, rocky soil and winters lived in small houses, “cold as hell.”
— The Chronicle, October 2020
Review by Chris Braithwaite
“While casual readers may appreciate Parker’s meanings without considering his use of poetic form, those who read more closely will admire his deft inter-weaving of structure and subject.”
— Deerfield Valley News, October 31, 2020
Review (subscription only) by Laura Stevenson
Review (originally published in Laura Stevenson’s blog)
“His observations of nature remind me of some of the journals and other writings of Thoreau. They aren’t a hurried look while on the way to somewhere more important, they are almost studies of how the natural world looks, sounds, and smells. His poetry is rich in the expressions of an older man’s life and a young boy’s memories of his family’s rural roots. There’s a real elegance running through these poems that impressed me over and over. His connection to the land speaks powerfully in many of his lines. Reading my way through his collection, it was almost like a walk through some shady woods or down the street of a small Vermont town.”
— 24books.org, April 5, 2021
Review (scroll down this issue to locate the full review)