Robert Fillman's debut collection, House Bird, was published in February 2022 by Terrapin Books. His poems have appeared in such journals as The Hollins Critic, Poetry East, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry. His criticism has been published by ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, CLAJ: The College Language Association Journal, and elsewhere. Fillman is also the author of the chapbook November Weather Spell (Main Street Rag, 2019). He holds a Ph.D. in English from Lehigh University and currently teaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania.

Books by Robert Fillman:

Other poems on the web by Robert Fillman:
"The Blue Hour"
"The Batter"
"Witness"
"Starling in the Furnace Room"
"Salting The Driveway (With Help)"
"He Plants Seeds"
Three poems
Two poems
"Confidence Man"
Two poems

Robert Fillman's Website.

About House Bird:

"The poems in House Bird drill deep beneath the surface of domestic life, finding the essential truth in the tension between what gets said and what goes unsaid, exploring the consequences of speaking and the consequences of remaining silent. Fillman reveals how vulnerable we are, even in our own bedrooms, basements, driveways. Like in the Hopper and Wyeth paintings that inspire some of his poems, he finds the mood between desire and loneliness, that feeling so profound and universal that we can only bow our heads in recognition. A remarkable debut by a promising young poet."
—Jim Daniels

"These are wonderful poems, full of memory and keen observation, alive to their fingertips. I don't think I'll ever forget 'The Blue Hour,' for instance, with its image of the dead 'swirling / from chimneys like hundreds of souls / lured by stars,' and then that final image of 'Katie Estan's older sister, ' dead from meningitis, who returns to drift past the speaker's 'snow-shackled rooftop.' Poem after poem in House Bird is beyond beautiful. This is a book to savor, to reread. A splendid poetic achievement."
—Jay Parini

"Fillman excavates what might seem ordinary to find radiance. In striking, fully articulated poems, he explores generational ties and the painstaking wages of parenthood. These poems are clear-eyed, generous, and compassionate. As when Fillman writes movingly about blessing a house for its future inhabitants, in similar fashion, these poems offer their blessings to readers."
—Lee Upton