Inkfish Press, February 21 2025
Praise for The Angel of Coincidence
In Tim Moder’s The Angel of Coincidence, every poem offers the reader a whole world to live in, with fresh, vivid images in each line. Moder is deeply in tune with the natural world, and his poems bristle with fields full of “cows…waiting to burger” and rivers “where fish..muscle silent arias from perfectly shaped O’s.” But the beating heart of this collection is the blend of love and grief that pulses throughout. The speakers in Moder’s poems, “walk…a three mile blizzard on a sharp night for a goodnight kiss” and love “like the fallen angels, face first, on fire.” The Angel of Coincidence invites readers to yearn and grieve in equal measure, with poems that can’t be forgotten.
— Frances Klein, author of Text Messages From The Angel Gabriel
The Angel of Coincidence unblinkingly faces grief, loss, and remembered love with grace and a weary, but determined, resolve to continue seeing the beauty in the world. Tim Moder’s poems resonate with poignant language and imagery. For Moder, memory serves to tame the pain and provides a template for looking ahead.
— Marc Meierkort Managing Editor, Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose Columbia College Chicago
The Angel of Coincidence sweeps us through many journeys. We lie between lovers in the intimacy of their bed then pan out to the open road of their lives. We explore the natural world, from the closeness of a bird’s nest to the vastness of water. And we travel through mythological realms of time. Each journey accompanied by the lush economy Moder brings to each poem.
— François Bereaud, author of San Diego Stories
The Angel of Coincidence is a beautiful, longing, sexy, powerful, tactile poetry collection that is a gift. Hold your heart or these poems will sweep it away. Love poems are to my mind the hardest kind of poems to write—these will pierce you. Catch this: How you skip reunions, satisfied with unreported accolades pictures taken from obituaries, but later ask me to break into the school with you to visit homeroom lockers and dance in four/five time on newly waxed herringbone tile floors. Catch the verses, hold them close, imagine yourself in them—now your heart grows warmer and stronger.
— Maud Lavin, author of Cut with the Kitchen Knife, a New York Times Notable Book; Silences, Ohio; Mermaids and Lazy Activists; 4-H alumna and a Guggenheim Fellow
