Tag: Contemporary Poetry

Sundress Reads: Review of Blind to the Prairie

Sundress Reads black and white logo featuring a bespectacled sheep drinking tea, reading a book, and sitting on a stool.
Book cover of Blind to the Prairie featuring blues and yellows, including an illustrated farm as seen from above.

Blind to the Prairie (Bottlecap Press, 2025) by Tate Lewis-Carroll is a slow and tender reflection on seeing. In this collection of haiku, Lewis-Carroll captures the rhythms of the Midwestern landscape, capturing the very moments of its emptiness and subtle abundance. The chapbook invites the reader to slow down and notice the thin seam between perception and disappearance, in contrast to the fast-paced, modernized world around us. Through astonishing precision and modesty, Lewis-Carroll transforms the ordinary scenes of fields and geese into revelations of mindfulness, weaved between the philosophies of to see and to be seen.

Blind to the Prairie might appear deceptively small, yet each “breath-length” poem expands into an entire ecosystem of sound and silence. The chapbook opens with a preface in which Lewis-Carroll elaborates on their belief in the connection between haiku, nature, and peace of the mind. It reads like a manifesto, saying, “Our bowls are too easily filled. Our bones have become too dense for flight.” Haiku, a Japanese poetry form interwoven with the emptiness of the natural world, serves as a practice of unburdening, of learning to be filled with nothing. That philosophy reverberates through the collection, where the poet’s eye does not seek meaning in the prairie, so much as dissolve into it.

Early poems establish Lewis-Carroll’s blend of humor and careful, creative observations, reading,

“spring recital—

the clarinet section

wets their reeds.” ( Lewis-Carroll 3)

Through a simple metaphor, Lewis-Carroll makes the ephemeral tangible, depicting spring as a performance of lively beings rather than a season of unmovables. Similarly, they also draw the stagnant into the living through seven, simply syllables: “morning mist— / my neighbor’s silo comes and goes” (3), whereby personifying a man-made to be transient as fog, Lewis-Carroll captivates us into a world where the economic, sturdy beings are humbled to the natural world, creating a harmonious collaboration between what has been perceived as nonintersecting. Later, in a delightfully wry turn, “storming— / sunny / on TV” (4), the poet captures the absurd disjunction between mediated weather and lived weather, creating a funny contrast between the storm outside and the screen’s detached forecast.

These brief poems, though light in touch, are deeply anchored in observation. Blind to the Prairie documents a world in motion yet perpetually still. In “beyond fields, more fields,” Lewis-Carroll encapsulates the endlessness of the Midwest, the wandering of infinity where the flatness is perceived as both a physical landscape and a philosophical stance. Here, the repetition of “fields” suggests monotony and wonder, in which Lewis-Carroll sends forward an invitation to see sameness as an art of infinite variation.

Midway through the book, the haibun “White Prairie Fringed Orchid” acts as centerpiece, rooting the entire collection. Written in prose, it begins as a travelogue through Illinois farmland and turns into a reflection on the effects of environmental neglect. The narrator observes “litter glitters in sunlight among the overgrowth of clovers and poverty grass,” before discovering the endangered white prairie fringed orchid, framed as a delicate survivor in a field of monocropping corn. When the poet calls to the farmer, asking him to name this rare bloom, the farmer replies, “Weed.” That single word sets up the book’s tension, crafting and navigating the distance between human attention and voluntary blindness. The haibun does a great job of setting the scene and theme of the entire chapbook— which revolves around the often neglected details of nature. The piece prose highlights the theme of environmental pollution and contamination, weaved in between the scenes of nature appreciation.

This haibun recalls the ethical waves of Bashō’s journeys, yet it is distinctly American in its landscape and critique. The Midwest, with its “27 million acres of Illinois farmland” (10), becomes a mirror for human detachment from the natural world. Lewis-Carroll writes without scolding, and instead layers the piece with a blend of irony and tenderness: even in describing environmental destruction, there remains a tone of gratitude for what survives.

Lewis-Carroll’s language is spare yet sophisticated. Each poem functions under a haiku lens, bending light just enough to reveal the subtle textures of daily life. There is restraint in their use of sound with soft alliterations and consonants that mimic the rhythm of breath and the soft, capricious winds of nature. Their attention to line breaks is also impeccable with intentional designs of pauses. Take “ball of twine— / holding nothing together but itself (11)” as an example. The line break embodies the poem’s meaning: a taut suspension that almost, but not quite, holds.

Blind to the Prairie stands out for its craftsmanship. Bottlecap Press’s presentation of a crisp layout and generous white space, along with the luminous cover painting by Harold Gregor, all supports a minimalist aesthetic. The design and aesthetic of this book feels like an extension of its content, the sprouting of profoundness in the unassuming.

These poems in Blind to the Prairie will make you look twice at roadside weeds, moonlight and the cadence of your own breath. They restore wonder to the everyday and ask what it means to see truly. In a culture that moves too quickly, this collection offers the potency of stillness as a form of resistance and pensive, astute observation.

Blind to the Prairie is available from Bottlecap Press

Penny Wei is from Shanghai and Massachusetts. She can be seen on Dialogist, The Weight Journal, Inflectionism, Headmistress Press and elsewhere. She has been recognized by The Word Works, Longfellow House and more. She loves cultural journalism.

Sundress Reads: Review of At the Window, Silence

Sundress Reads logo, which shows a sheep reading, with glasses on and a book. Logo is black and white.
Cover of book "At the Window, Silence." Cover image shows a dainty plant in autumn or late summer.

Part modern and part reminiscent of Romantic era poetry, At the Window, Silence (Fernwood Press, 2025) by Kenneth Pobo elicits the reader’s emotional side through combining commonly identifiable experiences with arresting phrases. The first half of the collection, titled “Inside,” traipses through a wide variety of topics, from family to religion and beauty, while the second half, titled “Outside,” homes in on the garden and plants, often using them to explore philosophy and self-reflection. Gardeners will enjoy the specific plant references, both the lovely, wanted chosen and the horrid, unwanted weeds. You might be taken by surprise, as I was, to find Pobo’s words and stories grip your heart and squeeze tears out.

Although “Inside” spans diverse themes, the stories, and often frank method of telling them, keeps the reader intrigued. My favorite poem from this section, “Marriage and Canned Peaches,” transports the reader into the exact scenario of the story, mentally and emotionally. Many of us have experienced being in a long-term, and rather sad, relationship. Pobo really captures the hopeless despair when he writes:

  “We sit on opposite sides
   of her sad eyes, then talk of work,

   the moon trapped like a key
   that broke in a lock.” (Pobo 18)

Other poems have a touch of humor, like the set that explores the sin of Adam and Eve and asks, “Why do our kids never ask / about our pasts?” (Pobo 39). This set needs basic biblical familiarity to appreciate, but both Christians and non-Christians alike will identify with the questions and points. Pobo points out that sometimes God can be harsh: “One mistake and you’re out” of the garden of Eden (Pobo 39). Pobo advocates for mercy, saying that everyone makes mistakes, and maybe we should “get some fireproof tongs” to pull out those sent to Hell for just one mistake (Pobo 41).

Just as abruptly as Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden, we leave the myriad collection of “Inside” behind and step into “Outside,” the more focused and fine-tuned part of the book. With Romantic-type connections between nature and emotions, Pobo uses different plant species to study aspects of his own history and self. Everyone will find something emotionally pretty outside: dreams, fragility, and surprising loves.

The piece that gleams most brightly for me in At the Window, Silence is “Blue Himalayan Poppy,” in which the blue poppy represents something you want, but really won’t work with your current life, yet you illogically avow to possess anyway. Pobo orders his precious blue poppy, despite not being in the right climate for it. There are some things we can change about our lives and some things we can’t. Since he cannot move to the paradise of the Pacific Northwest where both himself and the blue poppy would flourish, Pobo proclaims he will help it thrive nonetheless in sweaty Pennsylvania, and “Blue petal waves / will find our yard’s shoreline, / break and break all spring long” (Pobo 61). Pobo makes the best of his life on the East Coast, filling his garden with his dreams.

Not all plants are things of beauty like the blue poppy, and our days are often filled with weeds that need pulling up. Another poem very relevant to our modern lives is “Weeding Borders,” which discusses the topic of boundary setting. Pobo points out that even if we plant strong borders with those we love, those borders start to grow weeds and will eventually disappear without maintenance. It takes effort to keep gardening what we want to grow, and to keep even our most beloved inside their borders. In simple, relatable language, Pobo says:

  “Tonight

   I’m going to sit by Stan
   and not talk about work,
   neaten the border, make it
   possible for beauty, slowly,
   to come into blossom.” (Pobo 63)

Throughout this collection, one recurring idea is that although “to err is human,” as Alexander Pope has said, we must keep trying. Weeds will try to grow, and we must continue to pluck them out. Work will try to invade our personal lives, and we must set boundaries with our time. Loved ones might try to make unfair demands, and we must balance our own needs. Pobo communicates that we should approach mistakes with understanding and forgiveness. We’ve all regretted some action, and Pobo reminds us it’s just a part of our humanity. In this book, even Adam forgives Eve, saying he might have done the same, if the snake had found him first, and

  “Maybe Judas, freed,
   will email Jesus and say,
   Hey, I goofed. Sorry.” (Pobo 41)

And that’s all that’s needed.

At the Window, Silence offers everyday loveliness and mercy for everyone, and I recommend it for most adult readers. Home gardeners will especially appreciate the “Outside” poems. This collection is best enjoyed either in private or with close friends, in case it sparks strong emotion, and is best read in your own backyard. I would also like to recommend the following tea pairing with this book: Garden Therapy Herbal Tea. This tea combines familiar and soothing herbs with a touch of special verbena, allowing you to relax in a quietly fresh garden scent while reading from either side of your window.

At the Window, Silence is available from Fernwood Press

Ana Mourant sitting on grass reading a book. She has light skin and blonde hair, has a sunflower in her hair, and is wearing a green sundress.

Ana Mourant (she/her) is an editorial intern for Sundress Publications and a recent graduate of the University of Washington’s editing program. She holds a Certificate in Editing as well as a Certificate in Storytelling and Content Strategy, and a BA in English Language and Literature, with a minor in Professional Writing. Ana conducts manuscript evaluations, edits, and proofreads, as well as provides authenticity and sensitivity readings for Indigenous Peoples content. Ana loves nature writing and Indigenous cultures, and, when she’s not working, is often out in the wilderness tracking animals, Nordic skiing, or just enjoying nature.

Sundress Reads: Review of small earthly space

Sundress Reads logo, which shows a sheep reading, with glasses on and a book. Logo is black and white.
small earthly space book cover, which shows a red poppy blossom with a starry sky in the background

With an intriguing curlew bird guiding the reader on a journey of metaphysical thoughts and poppies dancing us from page to page, small earthly space (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2025) by Marjorie Maddox is an enchanting collection of poems that mix the everyday with the spiritual and preternatural. Part nature writing and part musing on the human experience, this book will cause you to pause and reflect, both to appreciate the grandeur of the prose and to enjoy being struck by the meanings. Unique artworks by Karen Elias are perfectly paired with each poem, and I would personally love several of them displayed on my wall next to their inspirations.

Divided into five parts, small earthly space begins with an introduction to the messenger—the curlew—who has some saintly connections it forages for, when not burrowing deep for its own sustenance. “How far down would you go for wisdom?” (Maddox 23) we are asked, while the curlew takes us to the depths of the ocean before showing us the fine line that separates heaven from earth above. At times, the poetry has a mysterious vibe, and at other times, a more worldly one. The curlew sketches the spiritual for us, after which “another Babel [is] reconstructed in our own image” (Maddox 24) and we enter the human-focused world.

Part II brings us sharply to poetry about the everyday: about a mother sitting quietly, about a home, and about eating blueberry pie at a cemetery. We’re walked through a junkyard and deathbed before getting to rejoin nature with a gentle poem of clouds and dandelions. After the more transcendental topics of Part I, Part II feels like we’ve landed on the ground, and are walking around observing everyday life from within rather than soaring around it. Part III contains a few poems about an intense wildfire that happened in the town of Curlew, Washington. We meet our curlew bird again, this time as a witness to the destruction from the wildfire. Topics of devastation and danger feature in this section, along with some environmental poetry about endangered species, including humans. Our curlew witness calls out into the loneliness of the wildfire-ravaged ecosystem and gets no response. Maddox helps the reader experience the loneliness of the burned landscape before we’re whisked away to Part IV and a more stellar atmosphere.

A curlew bird is bending down, examining a bright red poppy it has just discovered. The ground is grey and seems desolate, as if it might be on the moon or an alien planet. In the background is a starry sky with a purple nebula and a crescent moon or planet.
Curlew of the New Moon Discovers a Poppy

My favorite poem from this collection opens Part IV: “Curlew of the New Moon Discovers a Poppy.” The curlew remembers the beauty of the poppies before the destruction and

  “un-buries instead the curved
  brilliance of joy, hallucinates
  a happiness addictive enough
  to be real.” (Maddox 76)

The reader feels wonder and awe again, at the beauty Earth offers us. We then sail through a set of poppy-themed poems, each lovely and paired with a custom artwork, as seen in the accompanying image here by Elias. As a fan of nature poetry, I love seeing this themed section. We read of a poppy’s connection with a cedar tree and glimpse the poppy’s personality (sometimes shy, sometimes bold), which introduces us to the last part of this book called “Bloom.”

Most of the pieces in this book fit on one page or two opposing pages, but two pieces are longer: “Made to Scale” and “Hues of the Hollyhock.” “Made to Scale” treats us to a more extensive writing about beginnings and endings and opportunities. In a forest of possibilities, everything depends on your own views and actions. Maddox repeats the following idea in multiple ways throughout the poem: “It is only a door if you enter or leave” (Maddox 47). After all, if you don’t use it, what may be a door might as well be a stone wall.

The second long poem of the book opens Part V, meditating on the many “Hues of the Hollyhock.” Unlike what you might expect, only one featured hue is a pink. We see a ghostbloom, blood flowers, and black hollyhocks, all written about with dark words and topics. An excerpt from “Hues of the Hollyhock”:

  “O ghost
    of Seasons Past, if these shadows

  remain unaltered by the Future …,
    will only black smoke and drab ash,
  ubiquitous soot and too-late regret
    populate our abandoned gardens?” (Maddox 90)

The poem ebbs and subsides with a light show in a kimono blossom brightening our senses before transitioning to a quiet amber calm, then, a final splash of rainbow color.

Most of the writing in this collection treats the prosaic with elegance. Maddox infuses her style into each poem, whether the theme is nature or more Gothic like death and destruction. The book touches the spiritual while keeping us grounded with bold visuals, traveling through both the unknown as well as the “imaginative and geographical locations we call home” (Maddox 17).

small earthly space has broad appeal, and I recommend it for most adult readers, for both casual or thought-provoking reading. This collection can be enjoyed both in public or private, but is best read somewhere where you have space for peaceful contemplation. Your own backyard or a public garden or park would be ideal. I would also like to recommend the following tea pairing Bird Nerd Birdwatching Tea. This tea combines the familiar into a unique blend that will both sooth and gently stimulate your senses, enriching your similar reading experience of small earthly space.

small earthly space is available from Shanti Arts Publishing

Ana Mourant sitting on grass reading a book. She has light skin and blonde hair, has a sunflower in her hair, and is wearing a green sundress.

Ana Mourant (she/her) is an editorial intern for Sundress Publications and a recent graduate of the University of Washington’s editing program. She holds a Certificate in Editing as well as a Certificate in Storytelling and Content Strategy, and a BA in English Language and Literature, with a minor in Professional Writing. Ana conducts manuscript evaluations, edits, and proofreads, as well as provides authenticity and sensitivity readings for Indigenous Peoples content. Ana loves nature writing and Indigenous cultures, and, when she’s not working, is often out in the wilderness tracking animals, Nordic skiing, or just enjoying nature.

Project Bookshelf: Ana Mourant, Nature Writing & Indigenous Peoples

A medium-sized wooden bookshelf with books neatly upright between two owl and petrified wood bookends, and sunflowers decoratively arranged on top of the books. The books are a combination of nature writing and Indigenous Peoples books. In the background is a window with trees.

When someone asks where I’m from, sometimes I say “the mountains,” both because it’s true and because it’s fun to see people’s reactions. After all, why should we identify with a political state rather than an environment? Many times I’ve felt that I have more in common with someone who also grew up in wild places, whether in Alaska (like me) or in Africa, rather than someone who grew up in an urban setting. The natural environment we’re raised in, or the lack of one, affects us more than changing politics and monetary systems.

I’m sharing some book recommendations on nature writing and Indigenous Peoples today, for those of you that desire to immerse yourself in nature, even for just an hour. Take a mental break from urban life and pick up one of these unique reads. I’m presenting this bookshelf in three sections: nature writing, Indigenous Peoples, and nature-themed poetry. I’ve also selected one book to be the special feature of this collection. Feel free to skip to your section of interest, or dare to be tempted to read them all. Each book listed here is selected for its distinct content. Some are famous in their genre, and some are obscure treasures. For an immersive experience, read these outside in nature, at a local park, or even just by your window. I will give some immersive reading location ideas for each book below, tips on whether the physical book or e-book is recommended, and a suggested tea pairing for each. Enjoy.

Nature Writing Book Recommendations
A medium-sized stack of nature writing-themed books, with sunflower blossoms resting on top.

From top to bottom:

The book How to Read Water lying open to a page showing some text and some glossy photographs of water.

Tristan Gooley, a.k.a. The Natural Navigator, is one of my top three favorite authors. This book is exactly what the title says: It literally teaches you how to read water. Learn what different types of waves mean, how to forecast weather, and how even the reflection of light can reveal what’s beneath. From humble puddles to rivers to the big, open ocean, everything is discussed here in lovely prose. This book works well in both print and digital editions. Note that the hardcover edition pictured here does have a few glossy pictures inside. His other books are wonderful as well and can be found on The Natural Navigator website.

Best Places to Read: On the ocean, by a lake, or near a river. Imagine you’re out in the Atlantic, sailing from the UK to Iceland.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Beach Reads by Chapters Tea

A package of Beach Reads tea, which has a picture of beach chairs on a beach with palm trees
The book Mountains of the Mind, propped open facing down, so that the book looks reminiscent of a mountain

Few authors have the ability to draw huge in-person crowds like Robert Macfarlane. Now practically a celebrity in the nature writing genre, he got his start with this book: Mountains of the Mind. Just as I like to say I’m “from the mountains,” Macfarlane writes about his own “forays into wild, high landscapes,” and combines those with a fascinating history of mountains’ impact on the human psyche. This book works well in the e-book edition so it can be easily transported and read outside, if you’re not married to paper versions in general. It has some black and white photographs that view fine in the e-book as well. All his books are treasures, and I detail two more of them below. Note that Macfarlane doesn’t have his own website, but a quick google will bring up all his books, which have been published by a variety of different publishers.

Best Places to Read: On or near mountains, or with mountains in your distant view. Imagine you’re in the Cascades of America’s Pacific Northwest.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Spice Chai Mélange by Chapters Tea

A package of Spice Chai Mélange tea, which has a picture of mountains on the package
A black and white drawing of a holloway: a tunnel made of trees

If you’re in the mood for something mysterious with perhaps a bit of Gothic vibe, Robert Macfarlane will take you through the deep holloways (a “hollow-way” is a tunnel formed by trees and erosion) of England, formed over centuries and millennia, some dating as far back as the Iron Age. This is a quick read that includes some shadowy poetry and swarthy black-and-white pictures, which look just as spooky in the e-book as the hardcover.

Best places to read: The forest, the subway, or a cemetery. Imagine you’re deep among unknown, small roads in some backwoods of England.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Ancient Forest Tea by Mountain Rose

A tin of Ancient Forest Tea
The hardcover book Is a River Alive? without the book jacket, showing the shiny illustration of a river on the cover that is reminiscent of a blood vein

I have a signed copy of this one—Robert Macfarlane’s latest release—that I scored after getting to meet him at his packed book release event in Seattle last month. There must have been several hundred people there. It seemed like half of Seattle poured in to get their signed copy and meet one of our planet’s most-revered nature writers. Macfarlane was just awarded the 2025 Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing last month as well. Starting with an introduction titled “Anima,” Macfarlane takes the reader on a journey of both philosophy and travel, profiling rivers in Ecuador, India, and Canada, and exploring their souls and fates. Although I’m proud to own this special signed hardcover edition, the e-book of this is also just fine. Stay tuned for future titles by Robert Macfarlane as well. I’m convinced anything he writes will be outstanding.

Best Places to Read: By or on a river, or with a river in view. Imagine you’re floating along the Mississippi river, streaming through time as well as space.

Recommended Tea Pairing: In the Flow Tea by Fresh Pickins

A package of In the Flow Tea, which has a label in blue stripes

Imagine setting off on an epic backpacking trip, bringing artists’ supplies, and stopping at whim to paint interesting tiny things you see along the way … That’s exactly what author Rosalie Haizlett did, and the result is this lovely book. She strikes an amazing balance of creating a book that has bright appeal to both adults and children, comprised of research, personal trip notes, and charming watercolor illustrations. This is one book you really want the hardcover edition of, and currently it’s only sold as such.

Best Places to Read: Somewhere out in nature near an ecosystem boundary, where there are mountains as well as lowlands nearby. Imagine you’re in the Appalachians of West Virginia, in the middle of nowhere.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Appalachian Sunrise by Red Rooster

A tin of Appalachian Sunrise tea
A photo of Helen Thayer, dressed in clothing for extreme polar weather, with her dog Charlie, on skis, hauling a sled across the ice and snow of the arctic

Quite simply, I think Helen Thayer is one of the greatest women explorers of our time. She has walked across the Sahara, Gobi, and Death Valley deserts, kayaked the entire length of the Amazon river, lived with wolves, climbed some of the world’s highest mountains, and, in this book, skis to the magnetic north pole alone, with only her dog to help alert her for polar bears. This official National Geographic Explorer writes of her journey to the magnetic north pole (and back!) in this real-life explorer thriller. She survives polar bear stalkings and forms a close bond with her brave dog Charlie in this harsh tale of the reality of doing things no one else has ever done before. This book has some compelling black and white photos that show well in the e-book as well the paperback.

Best Places to Read: Somewhere cold, with a blanket. Turn up the AC and imagine you’re in the arctic.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Polar Bear Dreams by Kobuk

A package of Polar Bear Dreams tea, featuring polar bears and the aurora borealis on the label

Indigenous Peoples Book Recommendations
A stack of Indigenous Peoples-themed books, with sunflower blossoms resting on top

From top to bottom:

The book Two Old Women, open to the title page, showing a sketch of the two old women hauling sleds

This book is famous throughout Alaska, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an Alaskan who hasn’t heard of it, and most have read it. “An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival,” this story by Velma Wallis is a retelling of an Athabascan Alaska Native legend, telling how two old women who were abandoned by their tribe not only survived, but … (I don’t want to spoil the story!) This is a must-read if you’re interested in Indigenous or arctic culture, and is a wonderful lesson about the value of elders as well. This is one book that would be excellent as an audiobook. The original legend was passed down orally.

Best Places to Read/Listen: Somewhere you can see elderly people, perhaps a retirement community or local garden. Imagine you’re out in the wild somewhere that is foreign to you, and the elders might have knowledge to pass on.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Hawthorn & Hibiscus Tea by Traditional Medicinals

A colorful box of Hawthorn & Hibiscus tea

An old black-and-white photo of Ada Blackjack, wearing a long parka with the fur hood up

This book has wonderful epigraphs and structure, as well as authentic content. There are other arctic survival-type books, but none of them quite capture the reality of a tough expedition combined with real research, news articles, and journal entries. This is the story of a young Iñupiaq woman just trying to make some money by signing on as a seamstress for an expedition, who ends up being the sole survivor. This is a bit heavier, but very engrossing, read. There are photos that are best viewed in one of the physical editions. I haven’t seen the hardcover in person, but the paperback contains photos on special, glossy photo paper.

Best Places to Read: Somewhere you can be alone and totally absorbed in the book. Imagine you’re in a remote cabin somewhere, and no one knows where you are.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Wild Blueberry by Republic of Tea

A tin of Wild Blueberry tea, which has a pretty, blue illustration on it of water with blueberries floating in it
A picture of the partial cover of the book Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, zoomed in on the photo of Mount Rainier. The cover is green, brown, and blue to reflect the colors of nature in the Pacific Northwest


A collection of classic Indigenous lore, mostly from Washington and Oregon, including creation stories, animal stories, and stories that pass on values. There are many different editions of this book, but the e-book is clear with good pictures. This would also be a wonderful audiobook, but is not currently available as such as of this writing.

Best Places to Read: In or around an Indigenous community center or museum, such as Daybreak Star in Seattle, or the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. Imagine you’re sitting in a quiet corner, and an elder sees the book you’re reading, stops, and tells you a story.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Crater Lake by Oregon Tea Traders

A tin of Crater Lake tea
A map showing where the Noatak River is. The Noatak River is located in northwestern Alaska, originating in the Gates of the Arctic National Park and ending in the Bering Sea.

This is an older book—pictured above is my signed first edition hardcover from 1966—that details daily life of the Inupiat people of Alaska in the early half of the twentieth century, when many more Inupiat traditions than today were still practiced. It gives a glimpse into Indigenous Alaskan customs from a kind outsider’s point of view. The author, Claire Fejes, lived in villages there for a couple years and wrote about the people and customs. Some of the details strike home for me, like reading about how she would play pinochle with the villagers, which was also the most common card game I played with my family growing up. This book is only available in physical editions, and I recommend getting an older, used edition for the charm.

Best Places to Read: This is a good book to read casually on the sofa with family around. Bring this one home for holiday reading and discuss various tidbits with others in the room.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Inukshuk Tea by Culinary Teas

A tin of Inukshuk Tea, which features an inukshuk on it (large stones stacked to resemble a person)
A black-and-white photograph of two male Yupik dancers, wearing traditional clothing and masks. This is the same photograph that is on the cover of the book Agayuliyararput.



Read about the fascinating uses of masks by my people, the Yupik of Alaska. This book draws on the remembrances of elders born in the early 1900s and is a treasure trove of traditions and values.

Best Places to Read: This read invites reflection and is best read alone somewhere quiet. Somewhere in your home that has artwork helps to prompt thoughts.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Meditation Moment by Buddha Teas

A box of Meditation Moment tea
The book The Birchbark House, open to the "Summer" subtitle page, which features a sketch of a birchbark house. The opposite side of the book is curled under to resemble birch bark.



This Indigenous classic is on almost every Indigenous reading list. It won several awards, and although it’s in the young adult category, it’s a fun read for older adults as well. It reminds me a bit of an Indigenous version of the Little House on the Prairie series, which personally I still enjoy.

Best Places to Read: This is an easy read that can be enjoyed just about anywhere. Bring it on your commute, on vacation, or home for the holidays.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Original Maple Tea by The Metropolitan Tea Company

A wooden box of Original Maple tea, featuring quaint artwork on it
A colorful Navajo sandpainting of two people


This is the definitive, and enjoyable, reference guide to learn about Navajo (Diné) sandpaintings. Another part of my cultural heritage, I appreciate that Diné traditions are still strong throughout much of the Southwest. This is a slim book with many photos and works well as a coffee table book and a craft guide. It’s only available in paperback, which works well since this is one you really want to be able to look at the pictures in a physical edition.

Best Places to Read: At your project table at home, where you can start making your own sandpainting after reading it.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Cota Wild Tea by New Mexico Tea Co

A box of Cota Wild Tea, which has a photo of the American Southwest on it
An Inuit artwork, possibly a mask, resembling a creature half-human and half-walrus perhaps, with ivory tusks and side whiskers

This is a large, museum-type book that deserves a hardcover. Full of color photos of Inuit and Inupiat carvings, this book discusses the traditional legends of the Inuit and Inupiat people, and the meanings behind various carvings. It makes an intriguing coffee table book, and is best read piece by piece, to enjoy and contemplate the discussion of the artworks.

Best Places to Read: Your coffee table, when you need an art-viewing break, or perhaps a cabin if you want to sit, do some serious study of it, and maybe do some carving of your own.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Stone Root Tea by Tea Haven

A package of Stone Root Tea
Nature Poetry Book Recommendations
The book Haiku Illustrated, open to a random page in the middle, showing some beautiful Japanese artwork on one page and a well-designed haiku poem on the other

This magnificent work of art is a collector’s item. With a sewn binding and elegant Japanese artwork with each poem, this haiku collection is a beauty just to gaze at. Add in the poetry, and you’ll find yourself reading this every day. This book is rightly only available as a hardcover.

Best Places to Read: This high-quality book shouldn’t be damaged by transporting it around. This is best read at home, with clean hands (no snacking with this one) and natural light to appreciate the artwork.

Recommended Tea Pairing: First Spring Blend Matcha by Naoki

A round container of First Spring Blend Matcha
A page from the National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry showing a nature poem with a photo of autumn leaves


A collection of poems from around the world on full-page National Geographic color photographs, this beauty can be enjoyed by the whole family, kids and adults alike. I often open it up to a random page, read a few poems at a time, and gaze at the photos. With all the high-color photographs, it’s only available as a hardcover.

Best Places to Read: This is a larger, heavier book, so is best read at home. It’s pleasant both alone or with family and friends. Try leaving it open to a favorite poem when you’re expecting a visitor.

Recommended Tea Paring: Explorer’s Blend by Fortnum & Mason

A fancy tin of Explorer's Blend tea

Featured Book: Native Plant Stories by Joseph Bruchac
A photo of the cover of Native Plant Stories, with sunflower blossoms around it
The book Nature Plant Stories open to a page showing a sketch of a story with a native design in the corner, and text on the opposing page. The book is held open and upright by two owl bookends.


From the origin of cedar baskets to why evergreens stay green, this set of stories from eight different Native American tribes explain plants’ connection to humans and our mythology. It’s easy to read one story at a time, or read the whole book in one sitting on a quite afternoon. Illustrated with light sketches on many pages, it’s a read for the curious mind.

Best Places to Read: At the edge of a forest, by a meadow or lake. Imagine you’ve gone back in time and need to learn to use the plants in your environment not only survive, but make a comfortable life for yourself.

Recommended Tea Pairing: Roasted Dandelion Root Tea by Traditional Medicinals

A box of Roasted Dandelion Tea, featuring an illustration of dandelion blossoms on it

A photograph of the author, Ana Mourant, wearing a traditional Alaskan parka and Sorel-brand boots, standing on a bridge made of ice. It's dark outside and the bridge and some items in the background are lit up with colored lights.

Ana Mourant (she/her) is an editorial intern for Sundress Publications and a recent graduate of the University of Washington’s editing program. She holds a Certificate in Editing as well as a Certificate in Storytelling and Content Strategy, and a BA in English Language and Literature, with a minor in Professional Writing. Ana conducts manuscript evaluations, developmental edits, structural edits, line edits, copyedits, proofreads, and beta reads, as well as authenticity and sensitivity readings for Indigenous Peoples content. Ana loves nature writing and Indigenous cultures, and, when she’s not working, is often out in the wilderness tracking animals, Nordic skiing, or just enjoying nature.

An Interview with Michael Meyerhofer, Author of What To Do If You’re Buried Alive

Following the republishing of his book What To Do If You’re Buried Alive this past month, Michael Meyehofer spoke with Doubleback Books editorial intern Camelia Heins about the choice behind the title along with reasons behind his references to religion, connections to the Midwest, and the use of comedy. 

Camelia Heins: Your title really hooks people in and the title itself is the name of one of your poems. What inspired you to name this collection of works What To Do If You’re Buried Alive? Why did this poem specifically stand out to be the name of the entire collection? 

Michael Meyerhofer: The original version of that poem was about three pages long and was inspired by research I did on actual people throughout the ages who’ve been inadvertently buried alive but lived to tell the tale. Gradually, though, I whittled it down until it ended up as the fairly short poem it is now. Since that one already felt like an allegory for dealing with depression—or, really, any kind of struggle that feels overwhelming and insurmountable, but probably actually isn’t—and a lot of my poems can have a bit of darkness or sardonic humor in them, it seemed like a fitting title poem for the collection.

CH: You section off the book into two sections, “Scars” and “Tattoos.” I think these words are particularly interesting, especially with how tattoos themselves can be seen as scars or as art. What is the significance behind sectioning off the book this way? Can you explain your reasoning behind choosing these two words? 

MM: To be honest, I actually have to credit my late friend and mentor, Jon Tribble, for that! Many years ago, I was at critical mass in terms of having way too many poems that I was trying to fit into manuscripts, and he kindly volunteered to take a look at what I had. It was his idea to arrange the manuscript in two sections, with “Scars” and “Tattoos” used to distinguish between formative events and later, more deliberate choices. I eventually added what became the title poem and tweaked a few small things, but overall, it’s still as he arranged it. Jon was a kind, brilliant man, and like hundreds of poets out there, I owe him a lot!

CH: Many of your poems include some sort of unexpected twist or may catch people off guard. What influences can you attribute this style to? What kind of impact do you intend to make with these twists in your poems? 

MM: I’m sure I’m far from the first person to say this, but I feel like there’s a lot of similarity between poems and Zen koans. I’ve always loved how koans end on a twist that makes sense in a way that’s wild and transcendent but can’t really be articulated—the way they tug our brains in directions we didn’t even know were possible. For most of my writing life, poetry has been an exercise in teaching myself to stop white-knuckling whatever story or meaning I’m trying to get across and just trusting the piece to end itself.

CH: It’s clear your work contains a touch of comedy and satire, seen in poems like “My Mother Sent Me” and “Dear Submitter.” Can you talk about how you use comedy and satire and what kind of effect these elements have on your work? 

MM: There’s something transcendent and almost spiritual about humor—how it can let the air out of the worst tragedy and remind us in an instant that there’s a touch of absurdity in all our struggles and grief. Some of that might also come from growing up in Iowa, a state that’s beautiful but also rather stark and isolating, where deadpan humor is a must for getting through harsh winters surrounded by icy roads and fallow fields.

CH: You make quite a few religious references in your work, mentioning Catholic school, confessions, and more. Are you religious? How does your own religious background, whether positive or negative, influence your work? 

MM: I grew up in a pretty religious small town and attended a Catholic school—I was even an altar boy, and spent many hours in a white robe seated at the impaled feet of a graphically carved Christ! As you might imagine, I was also dreadfully emo, pondering mortality and suffering from a very young age (inspired, I’m sure, by all the time I spent in hospitals because of birth defects and health problems). So I was fascinated by religious stories because they were the first places I went looking for answers. Later, I took every religion and philosophy class I could in college (I’m the annoying guy who could sweep the Bible category in Jeopardy). Ultimately, I came to realize that my religious interpretations weren’t Catholic so much as Zen Buddhist, and to really chafe at the sense of bashful shame and unnecessary guilt that seemed to permeate a lot of those early lessons—but those feelings and religious iconography will always be with me, I’m sure.

CH: As someone with a connection to the Midwest, I found it interesting and personal that you included many connections to the Midwest region and suburban/rural life. The poem “Suburbia” particularly stood out to me. How do you think a non-urban, more suburban/rural background shapes your work? What’s the appeal of focusing on suburban or rural life? 

MM: I’ve lived in cities (of various sizes) for pretty much all my adult life, and I’ve come to see California as my home these last 9 or so years—but if you cracked my skull open, you’d probably still find a lone farmhouse surrounded by fields and tree-covered hills. The beautiful starkness of the Midwest has always seemed to me to be the perfect illustration of what it means to be human—there are people who love us, sure, but ultimately we’re on our own, so you’d better start figuring stuff out.

CH: I love your poem “Strata,” especially the imagery of lying on someone’s grave to understand the universe. I just have to ask, have you ever done that? And whether you did or didn’t, what was your reasoning behind choosing to use an image like this? 

MM: Thank you! Yes, I have done that, actually. I don’t recall where the idea came from, but I’ve more or less always had the sense that if you want to reach any kind of understanding, you have to keep your lens clear and cast off as many inhibitions and taboos as you possibly can. That might be why I’ve always had a great deal of respect for spirituality and curiosity but almost none for ritual and dogma. I think irreverence can be an amazing artistic, spiritual, and intellectual tool, so long as it’s sincere and not just performative.

CH: Outside of your poetry work, I notice you also write fantasy novels. How would you say the idea of fantasy plays a role in your poems, if any? 

MM: I’m a terrific nerd in real life! I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy, so for me, there’s not that much difference between a poem, a novel, a short story, etc.—just slightly different attempts at the same thing. There are countless ways that I think fiction has helped my poetry, and vice versa—from imagery and storytelling to maybe a bit more awareness of how something actually sounds to the reader. Both sides also feed into my nerdiness too. When I’m not reading or writing, one of my favorite things is to watch documentaries about science, history, religion, etc. In fact, I love lifting weights (probably another thing tied to my childhood) and will often exercise while playing videos in the background on physics, mythology, and strategic analysis of battlefield tactics used a thousand years ago—it all gets thrown into the blender that is my brain for later use.

What To Do If You’re Buried Alive is available to download for free from Doubleback Books

Michael Meyerhofer is the author of five poetry books, six poetry chapbooks, and two fantasy trilogies. He has won the James Wright Poetry Award, the Liam Rector First Book Prize, the Whirling Prize, and other honors. He earned his B.A. from the University of Iowa and his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He grew up in Iowa where he learned the value of reading novels, lifting weights, and not getting his hopes up. He currently serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review and lives in Fresno, California. For more information and at least one embarrassing childhood photo, visit www.troublewithhammers.com.

Camelia Heins (she/her) is an undergraduate student studying English & Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Born and raised in Orange County, California, Camelia has been active in her community through service, engagement, and both creative and journalistic writing. She enjoys reading and writing poetry, listening to several of her Spotify playlists, collecting plants, and playing with her cat, Moira.

We Call Upon the Author to Explain—Zoë Fay-Stindt

Zoë Fay-Stindt’s Bird Body offers readers a fresh mythology, one that is avian and ardent, through which we may better understand ourselves. There are no black and white solutions, but there is humidity, desire, breath. The poems explain that, by accepting the harm our bodies have housed, we can find the wings to evolve, if not to escape. In their responses to my questions, Fay-Stindt discloses the transformations their manuscript underwent to become Bird Body.

A small bird, perhaps a chickadee, lays prone against a background of pinnatisect leaves. Both the bird and the leaves are drawn in soft shades of grey on a white background. Above the image reads "bird body," and below the image reads "poems by Zoe Fay-Stindt."

Marah Hoffman: The collection’s three sections–the priming, distress signal, and finally soft places to land–and their accompanying epigraphs gracefully provide context for the poems. How did you decide on these sections?

Zoë Fay-Stindt: Thank you! I’m glad they land—no pun intended. As a trauma recovery narrative, non-linearity is a really important element of Bird Body’s structure, so organizing the poems into clean, legible sections seemed really strange. That said, finding clarity through the containers that each section offered was such a relief for me! I owe that relief, actually, to the literal floorboards of Sundress’ Firefly Farms: I had all but given up on Bird Body when I came to Sundress for a writing residency, and I decided to give the chapbook one last overhaul to see if it might be salvaged. Spreading the collection’s pages out on the floor let me step into the mess of the project for the first time in several years, and from that chaos, these three sections gathered themselves up. These are the magic moments of writing: when it feels like the work is more in charge of itself than you are and you just have to step back to let it do its thing.

MH: Specifically in the section the priming, the poems pulse with wanting and the shame that follows. In “the last summer of innocence” are the lines, “I the shameful/leader of our trespasses, horrified/at my appetite, blooming predator” (15). And in “pap smear,” “my consumption/far beyond the suggested amount” (17). As the collection progresses, consumption continues to be a theme. How can birds help us understand our desires?

ZFS: Mmm, that’s an interesting question. It makes sense that want, shame, and consumption show up a lot. Writing this chapbook, I was trying to wrestle with the lessons that the body—especially an AFAB body coming into sexuality, desire, queerness, and hunger—gets taught about its worth as a sexual object. This first section, the priming, tried to hold these ideas of shame and desire up to the light without offering any clear answers. The poems in here speak to the real messy process of trying to make sense of that “priming,” and the language of shame that I microdosed all through adolescence.

ZFS: To answer your question about the birds, I’m actually not sure I know how they can help us understand our desires! But in Bird Body, at least, they helped me find a surrealist escape that wasn’t anchored in dichotomies of good/bad or right/wrong. Moving beyond the human world, I could let go of the shame I had inherited around my body, my desire, and the violence I had experienced.

MH: There is a tone of reclamation that sparks in distress signal. The speaker proclaims, “In my mythology…” (24). Overall, the poems express invention: symbols metamorphose, archetypes take flight. I say all this to bring me to my question, what was your research process like? It’s clear that amidst your experimentation is an awareness of the Bible, fables, and mythology.

ZFS: The speaker in these poems—and the younger version of me—was really hungry for a mythology that could step outside of the virgin-whore complex and greet their body as the beautiful, confusing animal that it was. My research process wasn’t very structured for this project, actually, but I did tuck into a lot of varying mythology to think about how birds have been represented in religious texts across the centuries, and birds often appeared as creators—or at least present during the creation of life. If birds were our guides or creators rather than a man-like figure, what kind of possibilities could that offer to envisioning a world beyond violent legacies?

MH: Were your poems inspired by any particular landscapes and/or seasons? I noticed a few pieces describe settings that are warm and wet–traditional descriptors of fertile places, despite the collection’s complicated relationship with maternity. To add a second question, would you like to speak to this juxtaposition?

ZFS: Oh, yeah. I was raised humid: growing up in North Carolina swamp country, the world around me was a rich and thick place. I still feel most alive when I’m in sweat-wet places—so much living goes on there! I love that humidity seeped through the poems so much.

MH: I am a huge fan of the second person, and I noticed you are too! “You” has many different owners throughout the collection: birds, a lover, the speaker’s mother, the speaker themself. What were your goals for point of view (and pronouns) as you wrote Bird Body?

ZFS: I think I’d be lying if I said I had any explicit goals for this, but thank you for the generosity of your question! Thinking about it retroactively, second person often takes hold in my poetry as a response to an always-shifting sense of distance between myself and the “outside” world. The boundaries around me feel forever in flux, and second person allows me to simultaneously hold the world at arm’s length (with boundaries, even as they fluctuate) while still stepping into deep intimacy. Beyond the page, that feels true to my experience of the world: I’m always in direct address. Always in conversation with you—you, Marah, or you, heron, or you, Mom, or you, cypress. These beings crowd my sense of self—delightfully, strangely—and the second person lets all those creatures in. I love how even that phrase, the second person, acknowledges a presence. A doubling. That feels true.

MH: While acknowledging the aches and ruptures, Bird Body spotlights awe. The personification of good’s malleability seems to be the heron, this otherworldly creature that can both swallow baby birds and bless a horizon. Would you mind explaining why herons are significant to you? What do they have to say about the notion of ‘good’?

ZFS: Hmm, that’s a really interesting question. I think, as I mentioned before, that a lot of my process of writing Bird Body was trying to figure out what the hell “good” meant in this world. Also, what does that even mean? The heron in Bird Body often appears as a complicated figure—a healer, a companion, but also, as you point out, a creature who hunts, who hungers. This felt important to me to sit with, and to, once again, step into a reality that’s almost never as black and white as we’d like to imagine.

MH: Lastly, a question I always love to ask is, what was your revision process like? Any advice to other writers who are compiling a poetry manuscript?

ZFS: Whew! Yes. An important question with an always-messy answer. As I mentioned earlier on, my revision process usually involves a lot of printed versions of the collection to make sense of the work as an embodied, separate being. Who are these poems, and what are the conversations they’re having? Spread out on the floor, I can get a real sense of them. I also like to take myself to a café and sit down with my manuscript-in-process to meet her again: who is she? What is she doing? What’s she been up to while I was sleeping, eating, taking a bath? After gathering a draft of my manuscript together and putting it down for a while, I like to come back to the work, read through it as a whole, and write down my general sense of what the collection is working towards and what questions it’s raising. I’m almost always surprised. I think that’d be my general advice: leave your manuscript alone for a while. Go for a several months-long walk. Then let yourself listen to what the work is telling you beyond what you thought you wanted the work to say, and see how you can honor that.

Bird Body is available on Zoë Fay-Stindt’s website

A portrait of a person with sunlit skin and dark hair that is tied back and framing their face. A red sleeveless top is visible, and they stand against a grey-green slatwall.

Zoë Fay-Stindt is a queer, bicontinental poet with roots in both the French and American South. Their work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, featured or forthcoming in places such as Southern Humanities, Ninth Letter, and Poet Lore, and gathered into a chapbook, Bird Body, winner of Cordella Press’ inaugural Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize. She lives in Ames, Iowa, where she is an MFA candidate at Iowa State University, poetry editor for the environmental journal, Flyway, and a community farm volunteer. You can learn more at www.zoefaystindt.com.

A person with pale skin and shoulder length blonde hair smiles widely at the camera. Their smile shows their teeth, and they are wearing red lipstick. They wear a white sleeveless top and stand in front of a brown door and a grey wall.

Marah Hoffman has a bachelor’s in English and Creative Writing from Lebanon Valley College. In college, she served as co-poetry editor of Green Blotter Literary Magazine and Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society president. From the LVC English department, she won The Green Blotter Writer Award. She has been featured in journals including Green Blotter, LURe Journal, Oakland Arts Review, Beyond Thought, and Asterism. Now, she supports Sundress Academy for the Arts through her role as Creative Director. Marah loves creative nonfiction, intertextuality, whimsicality, cats, lattes, distance running, and adding to her personal lexicon. Her list of favorite words grows every week.

Lyric Essentials: Juliana Roth Reads Ross Gay

Welcome back to Lyric Essentials, where we invite writers to read the work of their favorite poets. This month, Juliana Roth joins us to discuss the work of Ross Gay, contemporary poetry, literary citizenship, and how Gay’s poetry feels like a doorway to better understanding the surrounding world and ourselves. As always, we hope you enjoy reading as much as we did.

Ryleigh Wann: When was the first time you read Ross Gay’s work? Why did it stand out to you then?

Juliana Roth: I had a funny way into Ross Gay’s work, which is just to show my ignorance of contemporary poetry. I didn’t know much about living poets until my final year of college. I was working at this small lending library at my school called the Hopwood Room where once a week the MFA students would gather at this big round table across from my desk and a visiting writer would come sit with them and talk for an hour about their process and books. There was a little nook behind my desk where I would work during the sessions and listen in. I was having a really bad day, I forget why, so I was in my nook. Then all of a sudden I started to hear someone reading a poem, and the words really caught my ear, and then the conversation that followed lifted me right out of my mood. I came out from my nook and learned the poet was Ross Gay.

RW: Why did you choose to read these poems specifically?

JR: In “Becoming the Horse,” I love how I’m taken in to approach “the beast,” whether that is a literal nonhuman animal or any part of us (or our world, which is us) that is difficult to touch, at first tiny as a grass blade, then a fly, then a total transformation occurs. I feel the piece also opens up the possibility that we might change our behavior should we know ourselves or our animals more intimately (nose to nose, heart to heart). It’s a love poem, I think. A gesture towards radical honesty, which the poem seems to suggest might set us free from fear. If we are fully honest and see with true clarity, what is left to fear?

I think this carries into “Ending the Estrangement” where that proximity to what is feared is actually knowing the pain of your mother. The gesture at the end of the poem of singing along with that pain just feels liberating. And like we’re being guided in confronting death. Also a love poem, I think.

And then “Wedding Poem,” definitely a love poem, I think it’s safe to say. For me, the poem captures that sweet embarrassment and shyness that often appears in the face of true love. I imagine that bashfulness happens at any age, and the piece celebrates how simple it is to just let love in—once you do, despite how long it takes to get there.

Juliana Roth reads “Becoming a Horse” by Ross Gay

RW: How has Gay’s writing inspired your own?

JR: The generosity on display in his work is an important model for literary citizenship and maintaining personhood in a public profession. The acknowledgment he makes in Be Holding where he basically says all the poets that came before and all the books he reads, even friends and family, they are his work and in essence the collection belongs to them—that’s pretty significant. I think modeling that resistance to becoming capital and hyper individualism a creative market puts on you is what I hope to do as well. I also think the process he used for The Book of Delights freed me to write my newsletter because I give myself specific constraints not to overedit (there are even typos!), write without knowing in advance what my goal is for the letter, and also as I do the podcast I haven’t spent any money at all on production, so it is very handmade. I don’t think I have a radio voice or personality either—I’m just bringing on people who I admire and who are thinking about the world in interesting ways to chat and we just record our conversation.

Juliana Roth reads “Wedding Poem” by Ross Gay

RW: What have you been up to lately (life, work, anything!)? Got any news to share?

JR: Right now I’m in professor mode just getting us through midterms at the moment, but I did find out a few weeks ago that I was selected as an Emerging Writer Fellow at The Center for Fiction, which has been a whirlwind. Last week we got to meet the outgoing fellows and I spent just a few minutes so far with my cohort, but I’m so excited for the community and space to write. I can’t wait to see what work I create while I’m there. I also have a new short film premiering in a festival at Cinema Village on October 26th if there are any local readers who love old movie theaters. As far as life outside of my career goes, I’m just spending as much time as I can with my family right now, including my sweet dog Ziggy. Oh—I started learning to skateboard with a friend this past spring so we practice as much as we can. And I’ve been very into trying different varieties of pesto—hugely exciting, but my favorite so far has been a beetroot cashew. So good!

Read more from this interview at our Patreon.

Juliana Roth is a 2022-23 Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow at The Center for Fiction and was selected as a VIDA Fellow with the Sundress Academy for the Arts. Her writing appears in The Breakwater Review, The Offing, Irish Pages, and Entropy as well as being produced as independent films that she directs. Her web series, The University, was nominated by the International Academy of Web Television for Best Drama Writing and screened at survivor justice nonprofits across the country. Currently, she teaches writing at NYU and writes the newsletter Drawing Animals (subscribe here: www.julianaroth.com/drawinganimals) featuring essays, interviews, doodles, and podcast episodes celebrating our interconnection with nonhuman animal life.

Ross Gay is an advocate for joy, love, and the pleasures of life. He is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His first collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller.

Inciting Joy is his most recently published collection of essays.

Ryleigh Wann earned her MFA from UNC Wilmington where she taught poetry and served as the comics editor for Ecotone. Her writing can be found in The McNeese Review, Longleaf Review, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere. Ryleigh currently lives in Brooklyn. Learn more or read her work at ryleighwann.com

Interview with Margo Berdeshevsky, Author of Kneel Said the Night

For the release of her book Kneel Said the Night, Margo Berdeshevsky spoke with intern Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong about the weaving of myth and reality, poetry and prose, to explore themes of temporality, spirituality, and womanhood.

Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong: You begin the first part of this book with an epigraph from Alice Notley: “To be dead grows on one, sweetly. Not knowing what time it is.” How do death and temporality influence the writing of Kneel Said the Night?

Margo Berdeshevsky: When did we see it coming? I know that I am afraid. And I hide it. And I can’t. So do you. I no longer know what time to call ours, or if we have lost our way in the literal and in the nonlinear. We are living, right now—in war time, in a time of yes, global ache. What time is it when fascism is rising in so many countries, and it is not the 1930s, it is now. With ugly aggression comes cruelty, and yes, death, and yes, fears, and lusts for power, and illnesses we cannot control, even as we try to love one another sweetly, and smell the rain, and believe in our own creativity, still.

When I was growing up, I often thought I was blessed to not be in a country at war. That wars were history, not our now. But I grew to understand that the wars and hatreds and ruins have never ended. They have only remerged, vermin from under old stones, and this is in our time. We try to pay attention to other things. Gardens. Sunrises. Music. Poetry. But the truth is what it is. As I write elsewhere in the book, “I am the woman who asks, how close is death, how near is God.” That question has been a deep personal and philosophical quest for me—from the past, and most certainly in the now I share with my fellow humans and yes, with readers. I try to imagine endings, and beginnings. So I wrote Kneel Said the Night with such consciousness in my being, of a world I can’t escape, as a woman, as a cynic with her eyes wide open to the world that is—and as one who still reaches out hungry for love, or sex, and that thing with feathers Emily Dickinson wrote of. “Hope.”

KYEJ: Tell me more about the way you move fluidly between first, third and even second person narration.

MB: The book, as I moved into it in the opening chapter, and later in the notes at the end, is what I call a book of “half notes.” Breaths. Fragments becoming a whole. So it made sense to me to speak in those several modes, first, second, third…as a way to embrace different points of view. Maybe facets of a shattered crystal, I could say. I wanted to build stories and poems that would break through different walls and doors. And to do so, I needed to find voice in the different characters and images. To move with a spatial and poetic prose and a harsher one, to an articulation and unexpected imagery—and to find a self, and characters that could live inside each.

KYEJ: How did you go about creating the hybrid genre of the book, moving from poetry to prose and in between?

MB: Poetry, prose, and images. Yes, they happen as a result of my larger thrust. I have a love for the hybrid approach as an artist in different mediums. I don’t like to be stuck in a single box, and I find it very interesting as a reader, and an image maker and a word maker, to break forms and expectations. That way I surprise myself, and, hopefully, the one who receives the work I can offer. As I wrote in response to a quote by Zora Neale Hurston, reiterated in the final notes at the end of the book: “The single hour cannot be—eternity. But here is its gathering—for the book that is in your hands, now.”

KYEJ: How did you select the pictures you used, and how would you want your reader to appreciate them within the context of the language?

MB: I’m a collector of my own images. I photograph, I draw, I collage, I layer, I hunt. Sometimes I have a piece of an image but I don’t yet know what I might do with it, it’s sitting on my table, or in my files, and then I wear a different hat or magic cape one morning. And I’m making a poem or a story and I remember that visual image and I go looking for it and it begins to morph in my hands as I see how it could accompany what I’m writing or have already written. I never use an image for mere show and tell. I use it to jog the way the words land. I like ambiguity, sometimes, and I like contrast, to invite left brain/ right brain side by side. As this book came together in its overall intention, I began to know what belonged and what to use, or not use. For that, I have an inner yes/no/yes—and I listen to it.

KYEJ: Tell me about your choice to use mythic, abstract elements in conjunction with more mundane aspects of ordinary life, such as gardening or texting a lover.

MB: I’m smiling as I answer this. Because all I can say honestly is: that’s just how my head works! I like collage. I like to mix. I’ve often been attracted to what is mythic and to the surreal. I’ve read and studied myths and different spiritual paths. I’m a rebel when it comes to “systems of belief.” I feel I need and want and have the freedom to pick what works for me at a given time. And to select something other, later, or next year. I’ve believed, and lapsed, and believed anew. And I’ve lost my way. But I don’t want to get locked in a box I can never get out of.

Abstract? Not so much. I’m attracted to what moves me emotionally. And what moves me, and what I tell myself I believe in has changed over time. I want to be a “believer.” But I lose my way and have to come back around from a new or different source. I’ve traveled widely in my life, I speak a few different languages, and I’ve read and explored different cultures and creation stories and spiritual explanations for our lives. I’ve had respect for each of them. Each of them becomes part of how I wonder about and look at life. And then—I long for simplicity, and silence, and daily life to lean on. I haven’t always been able to make that happen. I haven’t often had a traditional life. So yes, a garden. And yes, a lover. And yes, a text, if it has something to say and is not just blah blah blah. The mix of the ordinary and the extraordinary are tools for me.

KYEJ: What is the significance of the religious and spiritual imagery in Kneel Said the Night?

MB: I think I speak to this question in several ways just above. Blessings are everywhere, and yet so damn hard to hold or trust in. As the “description” of the book ends, it asks “who holds the winning hand?” and “who will save us?” Word images come near me, like presences—spiritual, metaphorical, hard edged and soft—insisting that I include them somehow. I think that to deal with our times these days, the spiritual element is often the elephant in the room. Religion is personal and can be addressed in myriad ways, or not at all. But our truths and/or questions are voices in the book that I, and they, pursue.

KYEJ: Can you speak about the book’s different experiences of womanhood and the ways they intersect?

MB: I’ve long cherished Sojourner Truth’s words, “Ain’t I a woman?” Because it ain’t so easy. Because the cause of freedom and a woman’s rights to be—confront us now as then, and more and more than ever.

Being a woman often comes at a deep cost to the soul. In the book I speak through different narratives of a woman’s intimate desire(s.) And her quest to know if she has learned anything in a long or a short life. If she is or can be free. If abuse or rape or just being in this world in these times—can still allow her to “fly” (metaphorically speaking.) She asks what it is or may be to grow old in a woman’s body. What frightens her. What desire and the hungers for love have led her to. What she must risk, to be held. What or who does she belong to. Where can she travel to become free. Who holds her hand. Who influences her? Dead mothers, dead fathers, available or unavailable lovers, her own shape and flesh, fame, solitudes, illnesses, death itself, or something holy? Sometimes she is preyed upon. Sometimes she turns predator. But mostly, the women I speak of in their intimacies turn to the erotic and the mythic, the poetic, the mysterious, and even to ruin. Or, joy in the play and dances of life—all to survive. And to be a woman.

KYEJ: Can you speak to the recurring birds in this book?

MB: People have noticed my inclusion of birds in my writing elsewhere. I acknowledge it. The very fact that a bird may lift from the branch, from the earth, and that in my narratives earth is sometimes a place to escape or to be saved from, makes a bird an apt symbol for me.

Maybe too it’s what I mentioned at the beginning of this interview: as one who still reaches out hungry for love, or sex, and that thing with feathers Emily Dickinson wrote of. “Hope.”

KYEJ: What is the significance of the constant father figure-like characters throughout this work?

MB: I would not say that the father figure is the constant in the work, but yes, it is a hard presence, and/or an absence. Sometimes as mythically so, as one to reach for. Sometimes, frighteningly so, as one who permits abuse. Sometimes, merely as an old death. Sometimes, but rarely so, as the patriarchal deity who might answer a question, the question. (I must add that often in the book, the mother figure-like character is written and is a constant for good or for loss or for memory or for ghost …)

Order your copy of Kneel Said the Night today

Margo Berdeshevsky, born in New York City, often lives and writes in Paris. Her latest  collection, Before the Drought, is from Glass Lyre Press and was a finalist for the National  Poetry Series. It is Still Beautiful to Hear the Heart Beat is forthcoming from Salmon  Poetry. Berdeshevsky is author as well of Between Soul & Stone and But a Passage in Wilderness (Sheep Meadow Press). Her book of illustrated stories, Beautiful Soon Enough,  received the first Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Award for FC2 (University of Alabama  Press.) For more information, kindly see margoberdeshevsky.com.

Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong is a Korean American writer, currently studying English at Columbia University. She edits for Quarto, Columbia’s official undergraduate literary magazine. A 2019 Sundress Best of the Net finalist in poetry, her work has been featured in diode, BOAAT, and Hyphen, among others. 

Sundress Reads: Review of Body Facts

Joey S. Kim’s Body Facts deliberately and bravely navigates the unique confusion of first-generation Korean Americans, moving with poise through both personal and political histories of trauma and loss. The collection’s range of experiences spans both space and time, from reflections on Japanese-occupied Korea and the Korean War to painful personal memories of a childhood spent being othered by white classmates in suburban Ohio, from the speaker’s life under Trump’s America to imagined recollections of her parents’ lives in their homeland. Grounding the collection’s vast sweep of history and memory is the physical fact of the body, and the ways it is wounded and transformed as it tries to fit into a country that rejects and shames it, while also trying to remain true to a heritage to which it feels unmoored. Kim’s poems borrow from a variety of texts: tweets, memoirs, Shakespearean sonnets, and more are all deftly woven in with poignant visions of rice paddies and monsoons. This braiding of sundry images creates a collection that thoughtfully expresses the variegated nature of a hyphenated identity, of an American-born child of Korean immigrants. Body Facts opens a door to that identity, illuminating the extraordinary complexity within the body that contains it.

The collection’s titular poem, “Body Facts,” uses text from the racist, stiffly clinical “Oriental Peregrinations,” written by plastic surgeon D.R. Millard, who brought double eyelid surgery, or sangapul, to Korea during the Korean War. Though the poem begins with Millard’s words, it ends with Kim’s inclusion of personal, painful details of stomach skin that “looks elephantine after the weight loss of high school,” or the arm, wounded after “the skateboarding accident.” Here, she reclaims the body that was historically horrifically distorted through the racist white lens, allowing it to be a troubled teenager, a fully realized personality, instead of the generalizations of the “Orient,” of “thousands of mongoloid folds.” This is only the first of many times throughout the collection that we see Kim carve space for the Korean American identity in old, white texts. The poem “Y” gets its name from the “y” in English poet William Blake’s famous poem, “Tyger” (“Tyger Tyger burning bright”) and, like “Body Facts,” it begins with the source text but immediately veers into vivid, personal images of “the hostel near the central Seoul train station where / halmoni supported herself by selling snacks from a pushcart” or the “fluorescent TruGreen patina” of her Ohio childhood lawn. In doing so, Kim takes hold of and reinvents the literary canon that has traditionally excluded any non-white, non-male voices. Why? Because, she states simply in “Y,” “I am fearful of disappearing.”

Yet, Kim does not only make space for Koreanness in the midst of white texts. Body Facts is filled with whole poems consisting solely of collective memory, the collection opening with images of a fisherman and his wife, “Stomachs churning, dreaming / of white rice at dinner.” As she steadily and calmly describes the scene, we are reminded that these memories, too, belong to her, as she belongs to them—though she may never have been the fisherman or his wife, their shared Korean heritage runs through her body, in her blood.

This collective memory becomes more specifically personal as she recounts, secondhand, memories of her parents’ lives in Korea, even addressing them directly in poems titled “Umma (Mom)” and “Appa (Dad).” Such poems evoke the way immigrant parents often become the point their children anchor to for understanding of the greater tradition they come from. Our parents are the people who look like us when no one else in our United States suburb does, the people that hold the key to the heritage our bodies evince—it is as Kim says to her mother in “Umma (Mom)”: “Your womb is my first / memory… / I grew up attached to your shin.” But Kim also captures the distinct sense of distance created between even the child and the immigrant parent, as the parent often feels unhappy in their strange land, lost in their longing for their home. Guilt and want take root in the child’s heart, as reflected in the way Kim wistfully begins and ends “Appa (Dad)” with “Most days, I can’t find you.”

What does this guilt do to a young body, as it also experiences the shame of twisting itself to fit the pressures of American stereotypes and expectations? In “’China Doll’Sacrifice,” we see the answer, as Kim shows us the young, Asian, female body “told to suck in, / act weak for the boys,” “[swallow] the venom of their words,” and “let the poison, the palliative, / come back up.” The physical consequences of emotional, societal pressures are made severely known, reminding us of the ways abstract concepts such as identity can have real and painful effects when constantly in a state of upheaval.

And yet, the distance between the speaker and her heritage is not unbridgeable. Kim makes this clear. The first-generation experience of feeling rejected and isolated from our parents’ culture is reimagined in poems like “A Sijo Prayer”: “The mid-day tide rolls in, and I dream of my Korean ancestors. / Although their words are foreign, the water tugs me to join my hands.” Here, Kim suggests that our yearning is reciprocated, mutual, that our distant heritage is as drawn to us as we are to it. They want us there. And this wanting shows us that we do, indeed, belong to someone, somewhere.

Body Facts is available at Diode Editions

Kaylee Jeong is a Korean American writer, currently studying English at Columbia University. She edits for Quarto, Columbia’s official undergraduate literary magazine, and serves as a poetry reader for the Columbia Journal’s Incarcerated Writers Initiative. A 2019 Sundress Best of the Net finalist in poetry, her work has been featured in diode, BOAAT, and Hyphen, among others.

Sundress Reads: Review of Bath

The Sundress Reads logo is black and white and features a fluffy sheep drinking a mug of tea, reading a book, and sitting cross-legged on a stool.
The cover of Bath by Jen Silverman centers a photograph of a shadowy white woman with closed eyes and wet skin and hair. The image is in dark and blue tones and the title and author's name is in a silver, linear font that fades at the edges.

In an interview with Jerrod Schwarz included at the end of the collection, Jen Silverman explains that she “wanted to contend with a multitude of possibilities” surrounding baths. “You can be immersed or submerged. You can be bathed in sensation, you can be deluged in light.” Water surrounds us in bathtubs and fills us as we drink; the language of Jen Silverman’s Bath (Driftwood Press, 2022) similarly surrounds and fills.

The purpose of water and other liquids shifts throughout Bath. Water may “quiver like a fugitive” as it flashes a reflection. Speakers are “treading water” or use “each hand cupped / on a different set of promises.” Water creates “ocean-memory / sharp as brine” and sparks “the fountain of youth.”

Nevertheless, “the fountain of youth” has “a limit” and is described as “a steam-choked pool.” In Bath, water is not only a regenerator or refresher; baths are threatening and ominous, even deadly. This subversion is seen most clearly in Silverman’s twisting of baptism, a holy and divine type of bath. In “Bath 6,” “they dropped you in the river. They said / Praise Jesus, Praise Him. You bobbed up / half-drowned… Somewhere in / the river mud, you lost your God.” Or, similarly, in “Bath 3,” “you baptize yourself in sorrow, again and again. / You baptize yourself with bourbon and brandy.” Here, baths are not spiritual experiences, but a destructive power that traps and chokes.

Most poems take place in a specified location, like “Boston,” “Louisville,” or “Cairo.” These locations help differentiate poems that investigate similar themes and often include nameless characters. Silverman explains that “there’s a lot of truth to be found in the details—what a place looks and smells like, the quality of its light—but also the specificity of… language.” The setting, like water itself, is fluid and changing. The reader can’t know where the speaker most belongs, where they are most at home, or where they were raised. 

In “The Devil Dogs My Steps, but if it Weren’t Him, it Would Just be Someone Else,” the speaker of the poem is “living in Cincinnati.” She isn’t sure that Cincinnati is home—she even asks “if you can call this living.” But, in Cincinnati, the Devil “calls” and “lingers.” The Devil and the speaker walk and talk together, even as he oversteps and complicates. “He isn’t invited per se, / but also, / he isn’t not.” “The Devil says: / I like to come home because it reminds me / what a disaster we make / of what’s ours.” But where is home for the speaker of this poem, or the speakers of Bath? Does the speaker avoid home to avoid her created disasters, as the Devil suggests, or is home found in relationships, in all their chaos and their miracles? As “a beefy woman at the bar says: / I like to travel because it reminds me / how great it is to be home.”

From this perspective, the role of water seems to foster connection. For example, “when I shower, you sit on the floor, / only steam between us.” Water fills the space between people, and a father’s love for his newborn daughter in “Bath 8” “becomes a weather-system / of love.” A few weeks later “he has panic attacks / all the time.” Relationships, and the delight and terror they cause, are as necessary as drinking water. The speaker explains that they “can’t stop thinking / that I’m going to die.” “Groceries, laundry, / bills of course, / but even the good stuff / …that stuff too: / gonna die.” Death anxiety follows the delight of interpersonal connection; this becomes a metaphor for humanity’s relationship with water, where the very thing we need to survive can kill so easily.

In “Bath 11,” the final poem of the collection, the speaker wonders “how strange it is: all the ways we are given to make / family.” For all the heartache of community, the speaker does not isolate herself. She spends New Year’s Eve with a kind of family, and her “ex’s wife tells us about giving birth / to their daughter.” On one hand, the scene seems full of fractured connection: the ex that married someone else, the foreshadowing of “B and I… breaking up,” and “my partner… that has yet to arrive.” And yet, when asked “to explain all this, / …what could I say but: Love.” In all of this, Silverman keeps bathing, even in the face of every potential loss.

Bath is available at Driftwood Press

A white woman with red hair, round, tortoise shell glasses, and a blue coat sits on a stone bench against a stone wall and looks directly at the camera.

Hailey Small is based in Wilmore, Kentucky, where she writes lyric prose and watches gingko leaves turn soft each November. Hailey is a junior at Asbury University, working towards a BA in English and History. She enjoys working in Asbury’s writing center, where she partners with remedial English students to make academia and creative writing more accessible. Most recently, Hailey was published in The Asbury Review, where she also serves as the creative non-fiction editor, and anthrowcircus.com.