Ellen Waterston

In this fine collection of poetry and short prose, poet Gwendolyn Morgan skillfully juxtaposes extreme times with ordinary observation. Her poems demand we bear unflinching witness to humankind’s inhumanity and suffering. But standing in steadfast opposition to each dirge is the reprieve of dailiness (“I put spinach tortillas in our cart. Yellow peaches. Sweet Walla Walla onions.”) and the poet’s exquisitely rendered evidence of the constancy and beauty of nature (“Each day birds remind me who I am.”). Over and again, Morgan guides us to an awareness of the “wisdom of grief, the gratitude of wood sorrel and salal”. The stolid, unembellished constancy of nature’s presence in these poems, and the simple acts of living and loving, show us the way forward if we would but heed this keen and passionate observer of the best and the worst.