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"Why remember the dead?" poet Kathy Nelson begins this sobering meditation, a descent and rise through what's lost and sometimes found again, her keen eye on the natural world, her mother in the Bardo and in life, both trouble and love restored, unshakable grief, regret, triumph, mystery... And why exactly? Because we need these poems as lens, as touchstone. And such lovely, startling interventions of language and image! Vivid detail, layer upon layer-say, a "landscape stitched with fencerows," or to hold a breath "until someone unlocks the door." That someone is this most remarkable poet. "Last night," Nelson writes, "I found a hidden stairway leading down/into a maze of rooms ..." And what a rewarding gift for all of us, to follow her there. -Marianne Boruch, Bestiary Dark
About the author
Kathy Nelson is the author of two chapbooks, Cattails (Main Street Rag, 2013) and Whose Names Have Slipped Away (Finishing Line Press, 2017). The recipient of the 2019 James Dickey Prize from Five Points: A Journal of Literature & Art, she holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Her work has appeared in The Practicing Poet: Honing the Craft and in numerous journals, including LEON Literary Journal, New Ohio Review, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. She has worked as a teacher, telecommunications engineer, and chaplain. She lives in Nevada.
