Cast Your Eyes

Island Verse Literary Collective founder Danny Sherrard’s latest book, Cast Your Eyes Like Riverstones Into the Exquisite Dark, is available now through Write Bloody Publishing. Find it here.

Danny is the youngest artist to win both the US National Poetry Slam (2007) and the World Poetry Cup in Paris (2008), and he brings that laureate spirit into IVLC's vision and programming. What began as one poet’s vision has grown into a collective weaving the San Juan archipelago together through open mics, writers’ circles, and performances that invite every voice into the room. From Write Bloody:

Through two decades of carefully crafted verse, Cast Your Eyes like Riverstones into the Exquisite Dark calls readers into a realm where beautiful verses bend and fracture like light through crystal.

These poems are incantations that merge the seen and unseen worlds, kindling ancient myths into new flames. With language that burns bright as ritual fire and flows deep as ancestral memory, this collection transforms personal reflection into universal revelation. Each page pulses with raw emotion and ethereal imagery, inviting readers to cast their own hearts into its depths and emerge transformed. This poetry doesn't just speak—it blazes, haunts, and heals.