“Here is a poet who finds in the tiny space, everything: ‘as if a small boat in the ear’s canal might carry me from darkness to a minuscule box inside the bird’s bright throat.’ These are deceptively little vessels, however, her poems simply the illusion of a container. The images and details in this work accumulate, amass, rearrange and sear themselves into the reader’s memory because of their fierceness, and the brilliant sensibility out of which the many observations here have been made.”

— Laura Kasischke on “Minuscule Boxes in the Bird’s Bright Throat” from A Good Wall

“The poems are visionary of a shifting, hummingbird-like iridescence.
Pennisi’s work offers the reader delight.”

— Allan Strous, Reviewer, Galatea Resurrects

Winner of the 2005 Carolina Wren Press Poetry Contest

“When Robert Graves wrote ‘Nothing promised that is not performed’ he was in the thrall of the White Goddess. This poet, whose goddess/muse is intriguingly contemporary Persephone, composes and performs such works as ‘The Gift’, ‘Hades’, ‘After Hysterics,’ and the title poem with the luxurious patience only a marvelously ripened spirit can achieve; that attentive languor and the spell of authenticity it begins instantly to cast, manage to be intoxicating and sobering in the same draught. An impassioned elixir, deeply alluring, strongly recommended. And, yes, here in Suddenly, Fruit all promises are kept.”

— William Pitt Root, 2005 Contest Judge

“Linda Tomol Pennisi is the recipient of several literary awards and grants, all well-deserved. Her skillful blending of the real and surreal through words intrigued me…” Read more of Johnson’s review here.

— Laurel Johnson, Galatea Resurrects

“Pennisi’s power is in her ability to precisely and hauntingly spell out a phenomenological wellness or illness with words, to detect fragility, failure, beauty — and more often than not, their co-existence.”

— The Southeast Review

“Pennisi seems to know intuitively those lessons that Rilke’s ‘young poet’ had to be taught: that poetic imagery must be drawn from the depth of one’s experiences and obsessions rather than willed into being.”

— Readerville.com

“This work is extraordinarily sensuous, tracing the movement of bodies through trauma to revelation, through fear to inspiration. And while there is a certain delicacy here, there is also a great deal of confidence. These poems are mature and sure of themselves.”

— New Pages