Kyce Bello is a clinical herbalist and a registered nurse, and those two personas manifest and collide beautifully in this collection. Her poems speak of motherhood, birth, pain, and healing, but with wild and natural imagery of plants, animals, seasons, and quiet. She has a clear connectedness to the rhythms of the natural world. The feeling of this collection is solitude and observance: the power of quietly listening to what surrounds you and trying to learn from the infinite wisdom of how the world changes, heals, and changes again. Being from the Southwest, the reverence for Ponderosa pines, Sandhill cranes, snakebroom, saltbush - it all makes me feel at home. A gorgeous collection.

This was an interesting collection of poems, and while i did enjoy the read, I don't think I would revisit it again. I'm not sure if some of the way the poems were written didn't translate well due to it being an E-ARC, but I found myself looking at formatting more and I feel like it hurt the collection. There was some repetitiveness, but I feel like that highlighted what Bello was trying to discuss rather than hurt it. Ultimately, I just felt like something was missing, but what that was I couldn't tell you?

This was an interesting poetry collection reflecting on the natural world, climate change, and community-minded mentalities. I found some poems more impactful than others, but there are multiple from this collection that will stick with me. I enjoyed the poet's structure and prose, but found that some poems felt a bit repetitive. I'm not entirely sure if this is due to the more limited themes explored, or due to the language used. Regardless, I enjoyed my time with this one and certainly think it will appeal to others!

Fantastic work. Every poem exudes life. The poet has definitely captured the spirit of her surroundings.