Lindsay Stuart Hill

Praise:

“Finding awe in the ordinary and miracle in the mundane, the formally nimble poems in Lindsay Stuart Hill’s World of Dew ring with a lyrical clarity that, like a Buddhist koan, invites us to embrace the paradox and ambiguity, the mysteries, of everyday life. In ‘a world of dew,’ loss, pain, violence, sorrow, and rejection are never far away—death can reside in an empty seashell, a riven pine cone, a child’s favorite doll, a shaved head, an unfortunate cat, a poverty-stricken landscape. ‘And yet,’ the flight pattern of finches can ‘look like they were sewing something up,’ a lone woman can sing in the snow ‘as if we were buried in nothing but sunlight,’ a kneeling gardener can find herself ‘blooming / and even my blossoms hold to the sky.’ As in Japanese painting, a few quick, but perfect, strokes illuminate the subject and bring it to life. These are poems to live in and to get lost in, and, if you are patient and lucky, to never quite find your way out of. Gentle, honest, and unstintingly truthful, this is, simply, a beautiful and life-affirming book.” –Ronald Wallace, judge, Brittingham Prize in Poetry

“A tender and meditative collection, exploring joy, grief, loss, and wonder in sharp-eyed poems filled with grace. One can feel the poet’s wise gaze fall over these pages, lighting the natural landscape of Hill’s mind in all its enlightened awe.”
–Safiya Sinclair

“In this remarkable book, travelling can be an outward journey, or an inner one, and sometimes both at the same time.  The best poems here, traversing continents, countries and cultures, touch on hidden wellsprings of thought and feeling that nourish and sustain the reader in deeply original ways. There is a sure sense of pacing, structure, and dramatic control, the poems unfolding with a twinned sense of mystery and inevitability. In a brash world of loud voices, Hill’s Zen-centered quietude is extremely rare and refreshing. Reading her poems is like drinking the purest water from a hidden spring.” -Elizabeth Spires  

“What a marvelous debut! The sacred openness of each poem reveals a mind that thinks and feels with equal lucidity. Hill’s anguished and clear-eyed awareness of the world comes with a restraint that, paradoxically, increases the force of the truths at the heart of each poem.” -Gregory Orr