2024 Poetry Finalist in the NM/Arizona Book Awards
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.
Published February 2024, 144 pages, paperback $18.95, ebook $9.99
University of New Mexico Press
Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series
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Reviews
“As an ornithologist, the first things about Sarah Kotchian’s new book of poetry that caught my eye were its title, the mention of wings. Who could go wrong with such a start! I was drawn in by themes that took me deeper and deeper—beyond the beautiful cover art….” READ MORE
—Janet Ruth, Fixed and Free Quarterly
“Each poem in Light of Wings is a guiding light. . . . crafted to penetrate deep into the soul, igniting a spark of inspiration, uplifting the spirit, and guiding the reader through moments of darkness.” —Suzie Housley, senior reviewer, Midwest Review of Books
“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
“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