The Unlit Path Behind the House

There is holiness in the stillness and the wild, as it becomes clear in Margo Wheaton’s new collection. Her poems speak of the ways that the earth’s movements translate through human bodies. They personify winds and snows, while human beings find their cores in nature.

This sharp air’s
orchestral with the advent of rain.

Spiritual cadences abound, deepened by the Gregorian chants and bartering skies referenced within. There’s a near primal purity in these “words it will take / your whole lifetime / to hear,” and it’s well worth stopping to listen and try.

[F]aced with the refrain
of the forest breathing, you can’t
think of a single sentence to formulate
an invocation:
nothing here knows you’re broken.

Reviewed by Michelle Anne Schingler

Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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