Books

Featured Review

Samuel Peralta

Samuel Peralta is an award winning poet, author and editor of the best-selling anthologies, The Chronicles, the founder of the Lunar Codex that inspired NASA and thousands. www.lunarcodex.com a film producer of over 120 films and a physicist with 150 scientific publications.

With this third book, Ross offers us a time capsule of the soul.

Words in Wonderment

To encounter the poetry of Sherry Lazarus Ross is to understand that art, at its purest, is a form of time travel – a deliberate act of preservation against the tide of forgotten moments.

I first encountered her works through her second collection, Falling Through Time, gifted to me by her daughter Kara. It was an incredibly busy time for me – as well as coordinating the Lunar Codex project, I was judging one of the categories in the ARC Salon international art competition, while simultaneously mentoring several teams for NASA’s annual App Challenge. And as a poet and anthologist, I had stacks of poetry and books in my inbox, waiting to be reviewed. I’d quickly read a poem to get the feel of the book and invariably return it to my stack.

And yet, in between all of that, I kept coming back to Ross’ book, poring over it in my free time, pondering every nuanced verse, until I’d finished the book. I remembered the times I’d felt a similar thrill of personal discovery – when I first came across Mary Oliver’s Devotions, and Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Some books I read and re-shelve, never to be read again – others make me want to embrace the poet’s entire oeuvre.

So I went to seek out her earlier book, Seeds of the Pomegranate and, finding it no longer available on Amazon, I chased down a previously-owned copy at a second-hand bookstore. I finished the book in a day, and to this day the two books sit on my night-table, next to another of my touchstones, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

So it was with great pleasure that I was invited to preview her third, and perhaps most compelling book, Wonderment. With this third book, Ross offers us a time capsule of the soul.

Structurally, Wonderment is modeled on the wheel of the year. Divided into four distinct movements – Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring – the collection gathers forty poems, ten for each season, in a precise orbital arc. Here, time is no longer an abyss to fall through, but a sacred geometry of continuous return.

Yet what lifts Wonderment into a truly singular realm is its synthesis of medium.

For several years, I’ve been curating an annual art exhibition and publication through 33 Contemporary Art Gallery called A Poetic Response. The project invites visual artists from across the globe to select a classic or contemporary poetic verse and create an original piece of artwork in a direct dialogue with those words. As a poet, art collector, and curator, the project is close to my heart.

Imagine what I felt when I opened Wonderment. For every poem in this collection, Ross has crafted a corresponding visual artwork in pen and ink, not merely to illustrate, but to resonate. Word and image exist here in dialogue, dual vectors mapping the same underlying truth. The verse supplies the melody; the illustration provides the gravity. Together, they create a resonant chamber where reading becomes a tactile, multi-dimensional experience.

Summer is populated by honeysuckle and heat, fireflies and thunderstorms, expanding into a meditation on warmth, fantasy, and marvelous possibility. Autumn is the smell of melancholy and leaves, the bittersweet architecture of surrender, murmurous hauntings and moonlight. Winter settles into a stark, crystalline peace, a maze of snow and birch trees, and the bark of foxes. Spring emerges as a re-awakening, herons and moonlight, a detonation of light and green potential.

And all throughout Ross weaves with nature’s creatures the enchantment of fairy tales, turning a collection of poetry into an astonishing, illuminated manuscript.

In an age dominated by noise and fragmentation, Ross reminds us that wonder is an intentional act. It is the choice to pause, to look closely, to capture the transitory in amber and in ink, in paintbrush and in memory.

Whether you read Wonderment as a seasonal almanac or as a daily companion on your own voyage through the seasons and the years, may these pages anchor you. May they remind you that even in the quietest corners of existence, magic is waiting – ready to be named, recorded, gifted, and launched into the light.

Samuel Peralta
Toronto 2026

Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso

Award-winning narrative painter known for her work on reimagining historical women artists across time.

In Wonderment, Sherry Ross has created a beautifully imaginative collection of poems that celebrates nature, memory, creativity, and the quiet magic woven throughout everyday life. Accompanied by her own exquisite pen-and-ink illustrations, this volume offers readers an immersive experience that engages both the intellect and the imagination.

Moving gracefully through the seasons, Ross transforms familiar landscapes into places of enchantment. Forests become portals, ponds become repositories of memory, and animals appear as messengers from unseen realms. Her poems encourage us to pause, observe, and rediscover the wonder that surrounds us.

Drawing inspiration from literary voices such as Christina Rossetti, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Rumi, Ross creates a collection that feels both timeless and distinctly her own. Rich in imagery, atmosphere, and thoughtful reflection, these poems invite readers into a world where reality and imagination coexist beautifully.

Wonderment is a delightful and exquisite poetry collection that reminds us to look more closely, dream more deeply, and remain open to the mysteries of life. Readers who love nature, poetry, folklore, and imaginative journeys will find much to treasure within its pages.