Light of Wings - (Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry) by Sarah Kotchian (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This haunting collection merges spirit and nature in a voice both elegiac and celebratory. Kotchian explores our deep connection to the natural world, one increasingly at risk even as it continues to surprise and inspire. From meditations on the dangers of global warming to supporting a friend with cancer, from grieving the loss of her own mother to celebrating nature from New Mexico to a wild Scottish island, the poems celebrate both solitude and companionship and enlarge our concept of belonging and community, offering us threads of resilience, persistence, and hope.

Review Quotes

"Sarah Kotchian documents the wonders around us that are so easy to miss--from grass to hummingbirds to the DNA of salmon in the trees, from yucca seeds to milkweed to the color of roses in an old woman's hair. She shows us what's here, 'annunciations everywhere you look, ' our glory beads shining around us."--Maura Stanton, author of Immortal Sofa

"In this compassionate and attentive work, there is radiance in the face of loss, music in the ephemeral. Breath is cherished here: the breath of the poetic line, the greater breadth of living things across space and time. Transcendentalist in temperament, modest yet eloquent, Kotchian's lucid and image-laden poems urge us―as stewards of an ever-changing and disappearing world―to 'listen for the new green song.'"--Shara Lessley, author of The Explosive Expert's Wife

"Kotchian's poems evoke the wonders of creatures all around us, if we are patient and quiet enough to encounter them. There is grief here too, woven throughout, as Kotchian attends to dying beloveds (parents, brother, friend) and to ecological loss. In a steady cadence, these poems ask us to bear our intimate and collective losses on this teetering, beautiful, and still wildly alive planet."--Anne Haven McDonnell, author of Breath on a Coal