In Make Me That Happy, Rikki Santer offers up a saucy collection of spirited poems that make me want to laugh, cry, and celebrate. Whether she is writing about dead parents, bumper stickers, or kitchen cabinets, she is at once witty and ironic, clever and entertaining.  Each poem is a carefully crafted delicacy—unique and lyrical.

Nin Andrews; Miss August

Reading Rikki Santer’s Make Me That Happy this Saturday morning was kind of like sitting down to a glorious, sumptuous brunch.  Here’s Santer describing a gorgeous summer evening: “We sit cross-legged on the lawn / for a rod and cone picnic.” A rod and cone picnic! One of the well-known functions of poetry is to show us the world afresh, to restore its glorious strangeness. Rikki Santer goes a step farther by reminding us how wondrous and strange language itself can be. I hear echoes of my favorite Surrealist/Absurdists here, like Dean Young and Caroline Knox and Russell Edson. But no one sounds quite like Rikki Santer. I love watching her brew up her crazy, beautiful, magical sentences.

George Bilgere; Blood Pages

Rikki Santer’s Make Me That Happy is masterfully nuanced book, brimming with poems both insightful and deeply funny. The imagery and turns of phrase in this new collection, from “a bouquet of geese/ glinting into formation” to “a hub-capped sun,” make us see the familiar anew. Ohio is lucky that it can claim a poet with such intelligence and warmth.

Maggie Smith; Good Bones

___________________________________________________________________________AVAILABLE FROM NIGHTBALLET PRESS  (nightballetpress@gmail.com)   $15.00

Copies are also available from the poet.  Please contact her through this website.

ISBN 978-1-940996-95-0