I feel a mystical connection to the forests, lakes, and mountains of Maine in Tom Fallon's In the First Place, where among many striking moments we are allowed to eavesdrop on Mt. Katahdin as it enlarges upon the sight during the first snow. Shifting from the majestic to the intimate, Fallon considers the celebrity of a single stone lost off a dirt road. These poems take a deep breath while the world rushes by. With admirable focus, Fallon discovers a singular sense of 'here' here.

Colin Sargent, editor and publisher of Portland magazine, award-winning poet

The quiet precision of Tom Fallon's language is beautiful. His respect for the natural world glows in each quiet word. These poems have the wisdom of unhurried-ness; a wisdom Maine once exemplified and Tom Fallon cherishes.

Baron Wormser, Maine poet laureate

The poems in In the First Place read like mantras to slow us down and show us the small miracles blooming everywhere in the natural world. These poems teach us the art of being alert to that world and honoring what is around us. The poems are about seeing and hearing, breathing in and honoring--bird song, wild flowers, fields, and also the inner self that sings and blossoms. Tom Fallon is a sweet alarm clock set on wake-up.

Betsy Sholl, award winning poet with 4 books, USM professor

In this small collection Tom Fallon, in the tradition of Whitman, adopts a persona who "lean[s] and loaf[s] at [his] ease . . . observing a spear of summer grass." In Fallon's case that grass grows in Maine, the "first place" of his title. The poems accrete from simple elements-a stone, a blue flower-surrounded by silence and repeated. The poet instructs us to read slowly, escaping the pace of contemporary urban life.

Lee Sharkey, poet, Beloit Poetry Journal editor, director of Women’s Studies Program at UMF