Sandi is a frequent and welcome contributor to fws and press mate of mine. I delighted in reading her second collection, Moonlight, Shaken (Kelsay Books, 2026). I cried. I laughed out loud. I sighed. And I applauded as I read.

I don’t know how many collections of poetry you have read (I have read many), but this stirring of emotion without triggering or traumatizing, rarely happens in this reader’s experience.

And so, I highly recommend this book to you.

Here’s a video of the author reading from the collection. And below: a short review of the collection. Enjoy!

Moonlight, Shaken

~poems by Sandi Stromberg

“I don’t know,” she says, in her freshman philosophy class and I find myself applauding, laughing out loud along with her professor who says, “First honest statement in this class.” That honesty, throughout this collection, makes these poems poignant, personal, and tender. Ms. Stromberg is a world traveler and art aficionado and though her poems on these subjects are brilliant, for this reader, it is her personal accounts of grief, loneliness, salvation, and homecoming that resonate and draw in.  From “ivory soap on [her] mother’s skin” to “the slight tinkle of teacups” to “the incubator of resilience” she loses and finds herself over and over again here.  With the poet, we experience life’s shadows: divorce, religious trauma, death, displacement, disrespect until finally she exclaims, “Enough! I am done…There is no room left for [these] shadows.” Faith, silence and space are present here, too, where the poet sits with Bodhisattvas “practice[ing] presence.” This is a powerful collection by a seasoned poet that reflects a life well-lived: a work to savor.

~d. ellis phelps, July 16, 2026

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