So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed, published by Rubicon Press (Edmonton – March 2007). A poetic journey with the poet’s missionary grandparents to the China they served in between 1923 and 1951.
So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed
by D. S. Martin is his first published collection of poetry.
“This slim chapbook of 17 poems celebrates the life of Martin’s grandparents who worked as missionaries in China from 1923–1951. The poems were drawn from letters the couple Ernest J. Davis and his wife Marian sent home during those years…My only regret about this collection was that it wasn’t longer.”
– Violet Nesdoly (Utmost Christian Writers)
Praise for So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed
(Award of Merit — 2008 — The Word Guild)
“This little chapbook took me by surprise, with poem after poem shocking with rattling expectations for the reader in a way at least somewhat mimetic of the harrowing circumstances described. The final three lines of ‘Good Housekeeping’ will serve as an example of poems that are disturbing, strong, taut. By keeping the collection to one cycle of poems, the poet has left us wanting more — much more. The historic realities that are underlying add a dimension of gravitas, as does the fact that these stories continue through the decades since. This is strong writing with a distinctive voice.”
— Maxine Hancock; author and professor, Regent College, Vancouver
“My only regret about this collection was that it wasn’t longer.”
— Violet Nesdoly, Utmost Christian Writers
“This is what poetry can do: take volumes of letters and locate the kernels, distil years of details with subtlety and a tolerance for ambiguity, stay faithful to the historical record and retell a compelling story.”
— Hannah Main-van der Kamp, in Faith Today; author of According to Loon Bay
“With the eclipse almost covering the moon as I type this, I had to get out D.S. Martin’s little book and read the title piece in it. It was a piece that caught my attention even before the book was published and seems especially fitting tonight. I don’t hear anyone beating with gongs and pots to scare away the heavenly dog, but perhaps that’s still to come.”
— Brian Austin — Durham, Ontario — 20 February 2008