In Cardiac Thrill, Meg Kearney uses the sonnet to tell a story that is personal and poetic, medical and historical, mortal and fabled, physical and metaphysical. Her touch is deft, witty, conversational yet capable of taking the measure (literally) of life and death. The interlocking nature of the crown of sonnets makes perfect sense in her capable hands as she, the formal prestidigitator, transforms one scenario into another. The poems have a marvelous naturalness that suits this wise, heart-tugging obeisance to the crux of our being. —Baron Wormser, author of The History Hotel

Heartache, heart attack, heart balm: “the heart adores a good surprise.” Part of the thrill in following the spinning symmetry of this surprising series is in unwinding the particular chain of DNA that constructs each sonnet and its links to the whole. When we discover the last poem, that final jewel in the crown, it’s as if we’ve come upon the living being whose tracks we’ve been following, page by page, to get here. Both that last poem and the first frame the “pericardial window” we look through to “the flood waters / rising,” and each poem in between is a raft on that tide of too-soon-ended lives. In these variations on a theme, Kearney wrestles with, mourns, and honors mortality—including hers and ours. Her brother claimed that “only the dying want / to talk about death,” but aren’t we all “the dying”? Here, Meg Kearney talks about death—his, her parents’, numerous poets’, and more—if not with a light heart then with a characteristically light touch, and when she asks “how it will be different for you,” we can’t help but catch our breath, confronted with what we can’t really know. —Alice B. Fogel, author of Falsework

Only a poet of Meg Kearney’s talents could write Cardiac Thrill. You’ve probably not read anything like it, a heroic crown of sonnets that bountifully embraces contemporary speech and circumstance. This is work you’ll return to time and again to be refreshed, emboldened, and enthralled by its intricacies, its formal elegance, and yes, its humor.  —Pablo Medina, author of Sea of Broken Glass

Read poems from Cardiac Thrill: “Heart Quartet,” “Surprise,” “No One Is Spared”