Toni Ortner’s poems use a language which is simultaneously sumptuous and spare to create a detailed world woven of reality and dream, sometimes both at once. Out of what seem to be simple materials- people, animals, plants, natural landscapes and sometimes architecture- these poems generate flashes of something uncanny, startling, and amazing.
—Judith Kerman, author of Definitions and Aleph, broken: Poems from My Diaspora
The poems in Toni Ortner’s Shadows and Silhouettes overflow with beautiful sounds, haunting images, and frank portrayal of love, loss, and human frailty. They are poignant, outrageously funny, and reveal rarely spoken truths.
—Sylvie Weil Author of At Home with Andre and Simone Weil, Selfies…