Verbum et Verbum is the first part of the trilogy Beyond Our Fears: Part II - The Separation of Grey Clouds (Salmon 2002), Part III - Homage (Salmon 2006)

Anne Lucey of The Irish Examiner has described the Verbum et Verbum sequence as being '... amongst Micheal's best poetry yet... the constraints of the intricate verse form suits him'.

"In the best of these poems Micheal Fanning relives a South Kerry childhood dominated by the sea, "the great comforter". Images are simple and memorable: 'the horse gallops/into the lungs of the wind'. He moves from the subtle colours of this bird-filled landscape to intense scenes of hardship: a homeless Ethiopian laments the family he has lost to famine and typhus; we listen to the grief of a body riven with cancer. Fanning depicts early monk scribes who painted otters and griffins to illuminate their manuscripts, much as he seeks images to make sense of a world torn by violence, hurt and unspoken feelings. Grappling with issues of suffering and faith, he constructs his own stone wall of understanding, cementing it with a host of Classical and early Christian allusions: 'The Maker arranges nouns, verbs, adjectives... And places stones to structure/the storm strafed wall'."

Katie Donovan

"A 20th century Irish St. John of the Cross, Fanning picks up the mystical Irish where AE had left it some sixty years ago and gives vent to agape with a boldness of execution beyond George Russell's wildest dreams. Verbum et Verbum, the title poem, is heartfelt, intense, courageous and a determined leap forward in what was once the thoroughfare of Irish poetry. It simply cannot be discarded."

Peter Van de Kamp