Wandering Bone

"With wildly-original images, sparkling wit, and a voice all her own, Olive writes poetry of expansive courage and vision, tipping over the edge of dreams we can remember without understanding, and celebrating the impermanence of life's nuances. In the end, she illuminates the vital colors, textures, shapes of pure desire, deep quandaries, and the kind of exploration that brings us to the essence of home-all on the way to "Welcome the spirits in." As she writes in her poem, Praise Song for the River, "We come to god each in our own way/ but we find ourselves on the banks of the same river, / our hot feet dangling in the same cool green water." This collection of poetry shines with originality, wisdom, and power as it continually tilts the reader toward new ways to perceive their own journeys."

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate and author of Everyday Magic: Field Notes on the Mundane and the Miraculous