In a Field of Hallowed Be

Once in a while, a poetry collection arrives that feels like a companion. The latest of these rare arrivals is Timothy Geiger's In a Field of Hallowed Be, which, like its title, combines traditions of prayer and calendar with wild, earthly inventions, from the ecstatic to the elegiac. Solitary agrarian meditations merge with memories of a youth roving towards "the milkweed of the west pasture, / where I am asking this field to show me how to live." Part Wendell Berry and part Shane McGowan, Geiger's latest collection pulls us through scapes of land and garlic and thought. It may be that there are many ways to die and few to live; this book is written by those latter paths, littered with human longing, hungry hogs, and the many names of birds, meadowgrass, and illumination. -Katie Hartsock, Wolf Trees