“One Night Stanzas, a compendium of exquisite verse about love is a stunning tour de force. Each poem deserves a pause, for reflection, being replete with metaphor that is fresh and beautiful. The chapters housing this verse move a story, about love, longing and loss. If you are looking for the Best of Love poetry, open this book. If you are looking for manifold iterations of love, the eroticism, the origami of LOVE, cherish this book. Reilley opens the atrium of the heart with such skill, the reader is lost in marvel. I found myself underlining passages throughout, words, metaphors, loving these poems, and of course, starring so many ‘extra’ favorites, because they are all so honest, and lovely. The title of this book feels so right, One Night Stanzas, but more than a One Night Stand. These are poems to keep on your nightstand. Open the book anywhere, after perusing them all, over time. And you will find yourself holding your breath, because these are treasures, a book to have and to hold.”
~ Ruth Houseman, Synchronicity and A Soul Leaps
One Night Stanzas by Christopher Reilley
“Christopher Reilly's new collection of poems, One Night Stanzas, delves beyond the wordplay of its title and serves the reader engaging poems. Smart and seductive, Reilley's work explores the reality and depth of attraction, desire, passion, looking, loving, and loss, and their experience at differing human life stages. Both intense and feather-light, with a knowing, palpable sense of humor threading throughout the collection, One Night Stanzas offers powerful imagery that lingers; consider this: ‘Our love is friendship caught fire.’"
~ Liz Ciampa, What Is Left and Good For Everyday Use
“This is a collection of glistening jewels, each one reflecting back to the reader one of the many facets of love, enabling the reader to examine each one, like a silverfish caught in a net.”
~ Katherine Hanover, The Sandoval and Empire's Heart
“In vivid verse, Christopher Reilly's One Night Stanzas evokes the passionate agony of love, lust, and loss. Frank reflections challenge the reader to explore their own role in romance with equal honesty.”
~ Richard H. Fox, you're my favorite horse
“My God, give me this book, a bottle of Reisling, and a hot bath, and I'm good for the weekend.”
~ Evelyn Schooner, Stamen and Pistil Whipped
“Christopher Reilley's One Night Stanzas is a collection of love poems, but one without a trace of sentimentality or artifice, cleared-eyed and hard-edged, with moments of stunning lyricism and grace. Some of Reilley's poems might seem cynical at first glance, but it quickly becomes clear that they're the work of a man who might have shed an illusion or two along the way but can still paint his often-star-crossed subjects with remarkable tenderness and sympathy."
~ Charles Coe, Memento Mori
“These are love poems for the 21st Century: practical and lusty, but embroidered with the lace of magic, a whisper of soul-clenching need, and genuine romance.”
~ Claire Bular, A Song Sung by Fire
“I remember Louis Armstrong rasped to his object of his affection, ‘Take your shoes off Lucy and let's get juicy.’ And in this book of poetry Reilley lets loose the juice with his love of words, and lets your dormant hormones arise once again as he mesmerizes us with his feverish, and lush verse that brought the blush back to this reader's pale cheeks.”
~ Doug Holder/Ibbetson Street Press