Cardiac Thrill
Early Praise:
In Cardiac Thrill, Meg Kearney uses the sonnet to tell a story that is personal and poetic, medical and historical, mortal and fabled, physical and metaphysical. Her touch is deft, witty, conversational yet capable of taking the measure (literally) of life and death. The interlocking nature of the crown of sonnets makes perfect sense in her capable hands as she, the formal prestidigitator, transforms one scenario into another. The poems have a marvelous naturalness that suits this wise, heart-tugging obeisance to the crux of our being.
—Baron Wormser, author of The History Hotel
Heartache, heart attack, heart balm: “the heart adores a good surprise.” Part of the thrill in following the spinning symmetry of this surprising series is in unwinding the particular chain of DNA that constructs each sonnet and its links to the whole. When we discover the last poem, that final jewel in the crown, it’s as if we’ve come upon the living being whose tracks we’ve been following, page by page, to get here. Both that last poem and the first frame the “pericardial window” we look through to “the flood waters / rising,” and each poem in between is a raft on that tide of too-soon-ended lives. In these variations on a theme, Kearney wrestles with, mourns, and honors mortality—including hers and ours. Her brother claimed that “only the dying want / to talk about death,” but aren’t we all “the dying”? Here, Meg Kearney talks about death—his, her parents’, numerous poets’, and more—if not with a light heart then with a characteristically light touch, and when she asks “how it will be different for you,” we can’t help but catch our breath, confronted with what we can’t really know.
—Alice B. Fogel, author of Falsework
Only a poet of Meg Kearney’s talents could write Cardiac Thrill. You’ve probably not read anything like it, a heroic crown of sonnets that bountifully embraces contemporary speech and circumstance. This is work you’ll return to time and again to be refreshed, emboldened, and enthralled by its intricacies, its formal elegance, and yes, its humor.
—Pablo Medina, author of Sea of Broken Glass
It’s been my pleasure to know Meg Kearney for a number of years—over twenty—and I’m always, in turn, surprised and delighted, then prodded into deep thought and filled with wonder when I read her work. It was through Meg that I learned what a heroic crown of sonnets is, how it operates, and what the challenges are that are present when writing such an intricate series of poems. That said, I’m happy to write about her most recent heroic crown, Cardiac Thrill, just out this fall from Green Linden Press.
The term “cardiac thrill” is a medical one, referring to a palpable vibration felt most often over the precordium (chest wall over the heart and overlapping the stomach), and it is often related to turbulent blood flow. It usually indicates an underlying disturbance, signaling possible heart disease. What Meg’s poems do, however, is something even more heart-felt: she tackles mortality head-on, with nods to Grandma and her father, the Pope, poets William Matthews and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Neruda and Yeats, among other notable figures. What do they –and we—have in common? We all have heart issues. Maybe not medical ones, per se, but we have loves and losses, worries and dreams.
This gorgeous collection of sixteen poems begins with a prelude, a lovely poem titled “Heart Quartet.” It begins in medias res, with a question: “And what emotional impulse leads you/ to speak of the heart….” What indeed? For the speaker of these poems, it is a real heart issue, the vibrations indicating the need for medical care. But there’s so much more to talking about the heart, things that we can all connect with. This is the genius of these poems and the poet herself.
A heroic crown of sonnets is a series of fifteen linked poems, with each poem after the first one starting with the last line of the one prior. The trickiest part is the final poem of the series, which is created from the first lines of all the preceding poems. It’s magical, mathematical, intricate, and seductive. Of course you can read one poem at a time, but why not just dive in? Each poem leads to the next, and we are carried along with the speaker of the poems, pondering life, love, and mysteries. In the third poem, “No One is Spared,” the speaker recounts what happened to Pope John Paul I, who, after a mere thirty-three days, died in his sleep, and “one day you’re whistling; next, your stone’s been carved.”
A couple of poems later, and we are given the where and how of poet Bill Matthews’ death, which shocked the poetry world and especially those close to him. He died while listening to opera, fully dressed and he “toppled straightening his bow tie”—he was relatively young, “just turned fifty-five.” But then, we move to a contemplation of Shelley, a British Romantic poet, whose “heart defied cremation, so it’s said.” What do these poets have in common? And how does the reader find a kinship with them, as well? These poems are an invitation to that line of thinking. And so we move from one little window after another into heart-things that are even more personal, such as the heart attack of the speaker’s father, who “swore/ he’d rather die than not live as he chose.” And in the poem “Born With,” we find out that the speaker, who is, of course, a version of Meg herself, was “born with a murmur” and “like a flute [she] had a hole in her heart.”
The narrative continues, and we come to a poem titled “My Ex’s Heart Was a Teakettle.” The controlling conceit of this poem is perfect, and it captures the complexity of a relationship that appeared to be “a bit romantic” but “I should have known/ his whistle would turn to scream and then groan/ as it died.” Metaphors do a lot of work, and this poem exemplifies how perfect one can be when the subject matter is both difficult and personal. The use of a perfect metaphor helps us both connect to the subject matter and leads us into the heart of the matter, as well.
The last poem is both clever and poignant, capturing the tenor of the crown, but it also serves as a love-letter to the heart. Yes, the heart is often surprised and surprising, maybe even shocking, but it’s always there—until it’s not. Meg closes this last sonnet with “Be still, my heart.” This collection is an elegy to all things of the heart: people, places, experiences, memories, the Self. Meg, as poet-speaker, is kind, smart, compassionate and passionate. This heroic crown is a beautiful paean to her craft, her loves, and the readers who embrace her art.
—Carlene M. Gadapee, author of What to Keep
Videos from Meg’s Virtual Events
Watch Meg’s April, 2026 appearance on Write Now with Gayle C. Heney