A Most Natural Thing - by Lisbeth White (Paperback)

About the Book

Part travel-writing, part ecopoetical mythology, part memoir: this lyrical, formally inventive chapbook explores our connection with the natural world.

Book Synopsis

Part travel-writing, part ecopoetical mythology, part memoir of healing, Lisbeth White's A Most Natural Thing: An Elemental Memoir was chosen by Michael Martone as the winner of the 2023 Chapbook Open. Split into four chapters-Air, Fire, Water, and Earth-White's lyrical and formally inventive chapbook is alive with longing as it explores our connection with, and duty to, not just each other, but all the natural world.

Review Quotes

"[In] this hybrid memoir...we learn an elemental resonance and timbre through memory, lyric and its myriad shape, sensorially rich practices of attunement, and the revelation of intuitive knowing. Yes, of course, the Vestal Virgin can be guardian of energetic transformation. Yes, of course, the stone is an ancestor. Yes, of course, the water will change its vibration in accordance with prayer and whispered intentions. Of course, fire is alive. This text, too, is alive with sensuality, heat, longing for home within interpersonal relationships and place, connection across borders, loneliness across time, and a grief that is timeless. Several times in reading the text I found myself completely captivated at the skillful interweaving of the personal, the spiritual, the societal critique, the stake of history on the present day, the illness and how we reach for healing and breath at the altar. This is a text of breath and groundedness, a book that could find an honored place on an altar as centering icon on this truth: we are all elementally connected. How can we hold one another more tenderly with that knowledge, because we must?"

-Raina J. León, author of black god mother this body

"In a book that asks how humanity can both 'hold such desperate faith' and 'punish [its] dreamers, ' Lisbeth White's A Most Natural Thing guides readers deep into a world forged with as much indifference as beauty. Combining memoir, historical inquiry, and travel narratives blooming with lyricism and vulnerability, White's prose treads the line between meditation and prayer, navigating the triumphs and complexities of identity, community, and belonging.... A Most Natural Thing maps out a new literary territory, one that places a profound appreciation not only on the natural world, but on our responsibility toward it. In White's hands, we come to understand that we should want nothing more than for this life to remain precious."

-Esteban Rodríguez, author of Before the Earth Devours Us and Lotería

"In her stunning elemental memoir, A Most Natural Thing, Lisbeth's voice is one that 'will never tire of seeing the world, of hearing it everywhere.' Formally inventive, each chapter reflects the elemental force at its core, drawing readers both inward and outward in equal measure-endlessly fascinating, vulnerable, and poignant in its reach. Intimate yet expansive, Lisbeth's work is led by an intelligence that is 'intraterrestrial, ' willing to 'follow the dreaming down into the earth, so deep into the earth as to be near the core of creation.' Lisbeth's voice is a prayer-a prayer carried on breath, sometimes a cry, sometimes burning in a moan of pleasure. It's a voice that seeks itself in the heart of hearts-not just the human heart, but its vast extensions-the heart of the whale, the heart of the mountain. This work is alive and searching in its questions of ancestry, grief, love, and, above all, relationship: to ourselves, to each other, to our past, and to the living world in which we are braided. It reminds us that 'we only experience grief to the degree we have experienced love.' We are so fortunate to have this wild little text. It is generous and alive, and its hands are open to bring you inside."

-Stephanie Adams-Santos, author of Dreams of Xibalba