Panhandle Creek Press is proud to announce it will publish Sandra McGarry’s new poetry collection. Watch for her collection coming October 6th, 2026.
Description:
In putting together this collection of poems I call to mind a trunk in my parent’s bedroom. It held my mother’s going forward, while leaving so much behind. Later it stored blankets and quilts. The poems in this collection are quilt-like blocks. Each poem started as white page.
Words came. Some easy. Some needed time. Some sober. I hold that a book, between its covers, is similar to a trunk. When opened it reveals layers of years. I moved to the west…left the ocean behind to welcome the mountains. These poems layer themselves from those days to now.
Sandra McGarry was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She spent her early years playing in the courtyards of the Old Harbor Project, learning lessons at Boston Public Schools, and knowing that words were important to write down. She was once admonished for writing on a house wall.
As a child, Sandra wanted to grow up to be a teacher. After high school, she earned a BA in Elementary Education from The College of Saint Elizabeth in New Jersey. Later she earned an MA in Education.
She spent 28 years in the classroom with young students. The poetry they taught her with their questions and comments and through their assignments made her a better teacher. Sandra believes her students taught her more than she taught them. Upon retirement, she moved to Colorado with her husband.
Sandra McGarry published her first poetry collection, Some Say Poem, Some Say Life, in 1997. Her second book of poems, Wild Sweetness, was published in 2019.
She has published her work in Dove Tales, a Journal of peace, Pilgrimage, Patterson Review, Colorado Magazine, Bristlecone on-line, Encore-the National Federation of State Poetry Societies and numerous other anthologies.