Imagine a Town resonates with a strong sense of how hard work (and hard play) shapes the lives of those growing up in a blue-collar community. These poems sing with the earned authority of witness--sharp, clear details etched on the page. Memory casts its spell here not in simple nostalgia, but through a fierce examination and an urge toward preservation as a way of honoring this heritage. She mourns the losses while finding those small moments that sustain us through those losses. Relying on a strong sense of craft and form, Sabol wastes not a word here in these tight, emotionally packed poems. ―Jim Daniels, author of The Perp Walk

What a deeply felt and richly inhabited place is the "imagined" town of Barbara Sabol's second full-length collection of poems! Through precise imagery, a range of poetic forms, and her wise and often humorous voice, Sabol gives us of the remembered towns of our own childhoods and the imagined homes of our heart. Here, the beautiful world becomes "a vapor, thick as myrrh / a recurring dream." ―Maggie Anderson, author of DEAR ALL

Imagine a Town calls upon its readers to "rest, reconsider." To see again for the first time the industrial glory of the mills, the rivers and quarries, the all-night diners, the "scratchily familiar" cities and all their busy inhabitants, those still with us and those lost, the watchmen and swimmers, the "misplaced women" and their children, the dancers and lovers and neighbors, the birds and bucks, the dogs and passing cars, the come and gone knocked into and out of existence. In this lovely second book, Sabol offers "a fresh account that holds us even longer out in the ordinary evening air," one that beckons us to share the "perfect words roosting on her tongue." ―Craig Paulenich, author of Old Brown