Habitation of Wonder. Abigail Carroll

Habitation of Wonder is an offering of poems that travels the intersection of the natural landscape and the landscape of spirit. Here, the moon is a «white comma / in the breath of space.» Crocuses are «ephemeral prophets, first of the sun's spring projects.» The ocean is «a vast / perpetual sacrifice on the altar / of the shell-glittering shore.» The collection opens with «Genesis,» a reimagining of the creation story with song as the divine instrument of creation. Five themed sections flow from «Genesis» like a musical thread, investigating the material elements from which we originate and in which we take shelter, as well as the gifts of language and faith, which make us more than merely «a constellation of salts.» In its own way, each poem invites the reader to «tenant beauty»–as well as to tenant uncertainty. When beauty and uncertainty collide, they spark wonder. As these poems suggest, wonder is simply another name for the world in which we live–and the world that lives in us.