“Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem. Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in.”

— Shauna Niequist

In our frantic, overwhelming, too busy world, what does a heart-centered life look like?  For each of us it’s different, of course, because it’s dependent upon what’s in our hearts, whomever and whatever truly reside there.  But it’s very likely – perhaps a guaranteed certainty – that the things we give importance to in our lives are not the same things living in the softest part of our heart.  This is the journey inward that Shauna Niequist chronicles in her book, Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living.  A collection of thought-provoking essays, Present Over Perfect explores the discoveries we make when we slow down, simplify, and choose to live with more grace and intention.

“Sink deeply into the world as it stands. Breathe in the smell of the rain and the scruff of the leaves as they brush across driveways on windy nights. This is where life is, not in some imaginary, photo-shopped dreamland. Here. Now. You, just as you are”

— Shauna Niequist

“In that most tender area of the heart, Niequst discovers, there are not numbers – the ones we exert ourselves hoping to see on a bank slip or a scale – and there is no obsession with status, with organized homes or perfect, social-media-ready lives, enviable careers and grandiose square-footage. In that space these things cannot survive because what’s there wasn’t meant to sustain them: love was not made to give power to consumption, financial gain, social success, and external pleasures. What brings us most fully to life is the love evoked by grace, by family and friends, love born of soul-work and stillness. To go into the quiet simplicity of that love in many ways goes against what modern society would have us do: it’s choosing minimalism over excess, frugality over frivolity; and yet, as Niequist discovers on the challenging journey toward intention, this is the truest, most compelling road to freedom and wholeheartedness.

In her luminous, lyrical voice, Niequist sheds the layers of life that our culture piles on, uncovering something raw and wonderful underneath.  She engages the reader in her own insightful ponderings as she reacquaints herself with her unique understanding of God, of work, marriage, motherhood, and self, all seen without the trappings of the many shoulds and oughts in which we so frequently indulge.  What she reveals, as much to herself as to the reader, is the greater depth of living, the powerful connectedness and emotionality to be found down the road so infrequently taken.  And the result is a gift of insight and inspiration to the reader, an invitation for us – at whichever point in our life we might find ourselves – to follow our hearts down the lesser worn path and into the quiet vulnerability of true fulfillment and authenticity.

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amazon - b&n - indiebound - public library

“I want a life measured
in the places I haven’t gone,
short sleeps on long flights,
strange voices teaching me
new words to describe
the dawn.”

— Tyler Knott Gregson, Wildly into the Dark

Tyler Knott Gregson is beloved for his typewriter series of poems scattered meaningfully upon found scraps of paper, makeshift canvases for simple, profound pieces of introspection.  He writes of courage and love and wanderlust, and the picture he paints with his words becomes a representation of a life lived wholly, fearless of the dark places and brilliant in the light.  Wildly into the Dark is his third outing in the publishing world – Gregson regularly shares his work on social media – and within the latest collection he goes on a journey into territory deeper still, sharing poetry and poetic wonderings as well as what the book’s subtitle charmingly calls, “rattlings of a curious mind.”

“There are no wrong answers here, no rules beyond this: be kind to everyone and everything, and give yourself away.”

— Tyler Knott Gregson, Wildly into the Dark

Gregson is a master of romantic language in the traditional sense; he writes beautifully of nature, experience, truth, and vulnerability.  While his subject ranges from love to philosophy with dips too into the political realm, all of his poems maintain a lyricism and whimsy that makes the reader feel as though a journey through the book is an open-hearted conversation with the author himself.  He writes regularly on the insightful depths of our relationships, from the vulnerability and peace of intimacy to the burden of our imperfect struggles, but there are in particular many moments in this collection where the narrative of his poems becomes more subjective; a piece addressing missed opportunities could become an apology to oneself; uplifting words to a lover can become a love letter to spirit, a shift to a conversation with one’s own courageous nature.  In this and many other ways, Wildly into the Dark harbors secret compartments for readers to discover hidden messages left by their own curious, wandering hearts.

“Poetry is taking an ache and making it sing,” Gregson writes in one piece, and the lines are true for every poem within the book.  A gift of compassion and comfort to his readers, the poems in Wildly into the Dark encourage the reader to persevere and to thrive.  One gets the sense that through his poems Gregson is wishing for his listener the courage to trust love, choose love, and know love in the same way that the beauty of the world has inspired him to live.

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Wildly into the Dark publishes on March 28, and in anticipation of the release $1 from every pre-order is being donated to To Write Love on Her Arms, the wonderful charity devoted to providing hope for those overcoming struggles with depression, addiction, self-harm, and suicide.  For details on pre-ordering visit tylerknott.com/wildly

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get the book:

online -bookstore- public library

“I want a life measured
in the places I haven’t gone,
short sleeps on long flights,
strange voices teaching me
new words to describe
the dawn.”

— Tyler Knott Gregson, Wildly Into the Dark

Tyler Knott Gregson is beloved for his typewriter series of poems scattered meaningfully upon found scraps of paper, makeshift canvases for simple, profound pieces of introspection.  He writes of courage and love and wanderlust, and the picture he paints with his words becomes a representation of a life lived wholly, fearless of the dark places and brilliant in the light.  Wildly into the Dark is his third outing in the publishing world – Gregson regularly shares his work on social media – and within the latest collection he goes on a journey into territory deeper still, sharing poetry and poetic wonderings as well as what the book’s subtitle charmingly calls, “rattlings of a curious mind.”

“There are no wrong answers here, no rules beyond this: be kind to everyone and everything, and give yourself away.”

— Tyler Knott Gregson, Wildly Into the Dark

Gregson is a master of romantic language in the traditional sense; he writes beautifully of nature, experience, truth, and vulnerability.  While his subject ranges from love to philosophy with dips too into the political realm, all of his poems maintain a lyricism and whimsy that makes the reader feel as though a journey through the book is an open-hearted conversation with the author himself.  He writes regularly on the insightful depths of our relationships, from the vulnerability and peace of intimacy to the burden of our imperfect struggles, but there are in particular many moments in this collection where the narrative of his poems becomes more subjective; a piece addressing missed opportunities could become an apology to oneself; uplifting words to a lover can become a love letter to spirit, a shift to a conversation with one’s own courageous nature.  In this and many other ways, Wildly into the Dark harbors secret compartments for readers to discover hidden messages left by their own curious, wandering hearts.

“Poetry is taking an ache and making it sing,” Gregson writes in one piece, and the lines are true for every poem within the book.  A gift of compassion and comfort to his readers, the poems in Wildly into the Darkencourage the reader to persevere and to thrive.  One gets the sense that through his poems Gregson is wishing for his listener the courage to trust love, choose love, and know love in the same way that the beauty of the world has inspired him to live.

---

GET THE BOOK:

online -bookstore- public library

When writer Belinda Pollard acquired her spunky Australian Terrier in May of 1998, she had no idea in what ways the furry little hurricane would change her life - and herself.  In Dogged Optimism: Lessons in Joy from a Disaster Prone Dog, Pollard compiles the story of her adventure with bright-eyed, ever-inquisitive Killarney, and in her quietly humorous, heartfelt way she fills the pages of the memoir with the meaningful essence of dog ownership.  Through sixteen "lessons" Killarney teaches Belinda how to live fiercely and freely, while she, a natural-born worrier, warily follows Killarney's lead into the sometimes frightening joys of life.  The result is a heartwarming tribute to woman's best friend and an engaging examination of how growth can find its way to us in the most unexpected ways.

Over the course of life with the spirited Killarney, her dearly beloved "Puddly", Belinda faces challenges in work and in life as she wrestles with her career in publishing and her dreams of writing a novel.  Along the way, with one eye ever watchful on Killarney should anything treacherous arise in her Brisbane yard to disturb or harm her dog, Belinda suffers personal loss, survives heartbreak, overcomes fears, travels for work and pleasure, and finally brings her novel, Poison Bay, into the world.  The journey is frequently punctuated by emergency trips to the vet, late-night toad-hunting excursions, and the painstaking devotion of caring for an aging dog.  From puppyhood to her golden years, Killarney's colorful spirit inspires the author to live her fullest life - to "grab life by the scruff of the neck and shake it" in true Killarney fashion.

Pollard's love of dogs is immediately evident in her writing as she spins numerous stories with the wide-eyed wonderment and frazzled nerves of a new dog owner alongside the perpetual adoration with which we view our pets.  Not just a heartwarming biography of a special dog's happy life, Dogged Optimism also finds itself effective as a memoir on personal growth, the kind which dog ownership thrusts upon us unsuspecting, harried, utterly gratified humans. While thoroughly poignant and constantly empathetic, Dogged Optimism also avoids becoming an full-on tearjerker, which is rather refreshing in the realm of four-legged nonfiction.  Instead, Pollard devotes her every ounce of love and enthusiasm into this charming account of unexpected joy.  Through her compassionate narrative Pollard successfully introduces her readers to a most delightful little dog and instills in them the sense of loyalty, fulfillment, and purity of happiness as only our dogs can teach us.  Dogged Optimism is a treasure for anyone who has ever loved a dog.

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get the book: amazon - barnes & noble - indiebound

When writer Belinda Pollard acquired her spunky Australian Terrier in May of 1998, she had no idea in what ways the furry little hurricane would change her life - and herself.  In Dogged Optimism: Lessons in Joy from a Disaster Prone Dog, Pollard compiles the story of her adventure with bright-eyed, ever-inquisitive Killarney, and in her quietly humorous, heartfelt way she fills the pages of the memoir with the meaningful essence of dog ownership.  Through sixteen "lessons" Killarney teaches Belinda how to live fiercely and freely, while she, a natural-born worrier, warily follows Killarney's lead into the sometimes frightening joys of life.  The result is a heartwarming tribute to woman's best friend and an engaging examination of how growth can find its way to us in the most unexpected ways.

Over the course of life with the spirited Killarney, her dearly beloved "Puddly", Belinda faces challenges in work and in life as she wrestles with her career in publishing and her dreams of writing a novel.  Along the way, with one eye ever watchful on Killarney should anything treacherous arise in her Brisbane yard to disturb or harm her dog, Belinda suffers personal loss, survives heartbreak, overcomes fears, travels for work and pleasure, and finally brings her novel, Poison Bay, into the world.  The journey is frequently punctuated by emergency trips to the vet, late-night toad-hunting excursions, and the painstaking devotion of caring for an aging dog.  From puppyhood to her golden years, Killarney's colorful spirit inspires the author to live her fullest life - to "grab life by the scruff of the neck and shake it" in true Killarney fashion.

Pollard's love of dogs is immediately evident in her writing as she spins numerous stories with the wide-eyed wonderment and frazzled nerves of a new dog owner alongside the perpetual adoration with which we view our pets.  Not just a heartwarming biography of a special dog's happy life, Dogged Optimism also finds itself effective as a memoir on personal growth, the kind which dog ownership thrusts upon us unsuspecting, harried, utterly gratified humans. While thoroughly poignant and constantly empathetic, Dogged Optimism also avoids becoming an full-on tearjerker, which is rather refreshing in the realm of four-legged nonfiction.  Instead, Pollard devotes her every ounce of love and enthusiasm into this charming account of unexpected joy.  Through her compassionate narrative Pollard successfully introduces her readers to a most delightful little dog and instills in them the sense of loyalty, fulfillment, and purity of happiness as only our dogs can teach us.  Dogged Optimism is a treasure for anyone who has ever loved a dog.

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get the book: amazon - barnes & noble - indiebound

"This is the only life I have and I never step out of itexcept to follow a character down the alleys of a novel or when love makes me want to remove my clothes and sail classical records off a cliff." from One Life to Live by Billy Collins (Questions About Angels)

Billy Collins is a New York-born, California-educated poet, and his work combines the best of both coasts. Distinctly American in their narrative style, Collins’s poems evoke wit, wonder, and whimsy from the simplistic. In his way of lyrically illuminating the magical of the everyday, Collins teaches his reader how to reach back and grasp the open-hearted experience of youth, and how to search for it in small moments of our disillusioned grown-up lives. His fourth collection, Questions About Angels, was first published in 1991, and in the twenty-plus years since it first became available, the collection has lost neither its power of observation, its relevancy, nor its ability to charm a new generation.

"It is raining so hard and the Jazz on the radio is playing so loud, you almost feel like surrendering to the wish that somebody up there actually likes you or at least was keeping an eye on your solitude." from Putti in the Night by Billy Collins (Questions About Angels)

Like his contemporary, Mary Oliver, Collins likes to skirt the rules with nary a sideglance. He cheekily embarks on his own experience of the poetic art, utilizing the form to explore themes of nature, religion, youthfulness, imagination, and life. In his efforts he creates poems like First Reader, which spins a charming image of the commonplace into something necessary and profound, while poems like Purity and Cliché energetically use writing as a theme.

Collins teaches us to look at life with this same cheerful, mischievous curiosity. As the children in First Reader we are "forgetting how to look, learning how to read" and perhaps here is Collins’s best advice, not only on reading but also on life. In poems like The Hunt Collins is at his most playful as he conjures a whimsical image of Noah Webster and cohorts scouring the countryside for a new word ("It is a small noun about the size of a mouse,/ one that will seldom be used by anyone"). Other poems, such as Reading Myself to Sleep and Forgetfulness are warm – even empathetic – odes to books, a subject Collins writes about beautifully.

The titular poem begins the second part of the collection, in which Collins shares the only poems in the book that hint at the more spiritual leanings that the title poem suggests. Questions About Angels asks the staggering question: "If an angel delivered the mail would he arrive/ in a blind rush of wings or would he just assume / the appearance of the regular mailman and / whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?" Such are the gentle reminders from Collins to always, always be curious, and to never close ourselves off from wonder.

"Then he makes three circles around himself, flattening his ancient memory of tall grass before dropping his weight with a sigh on the floor." from Dog by Billy Collins (Questions About Angels)

For all his delightful phrasing, Collins is best enjoyed for his gift as a storyteller, whether writing about the First Geniuses of the prehistoric era or the observations of the moon over winter trees on a night drive, or instructing some future painter on how to go about his portrait (it is presumed, posthumously). Collins has a true and vivacious talent for conjuring the most intricate and enchanting details with the language of the everyday.

With the last two parts of the collection – especially the final – Collins turns a little more fully inward, and his work becomes a little more vulnerable in places, piercing and revealing. Writing about love, especially, the jovial energy of his other work quietly fades and his lyricism touches the reader’s heart. This is especially true for poems like Night Sand with its imagery of the subject healing himself beneath his shell armor like an armadillo after a love's fatal blow, "ready to burrow deep or curl himself into a ball / which will shelter his soft head / soft feet / and tail from the heavy rhythmic blows." Even poems like Metamorphosis take on a particularly profound air as the narrator longs for Kafka to write him "into something new".

"Ah, to awaken as the NYPL. I would pass the days observing old men in raincoats as they mounted the ponderous steps between the lions, carrying wild and scribbled notes inside their pockets. I would stare over Fifth Avenue with a perfectly straight face." from Metamorphosis by Billy Collins (Questions About Angels)

Perhaps my favorite from the collection is the one simply titled Wolf, which begins with the perfectly natural lines, "A wolf is reading a book of fairy tales. / The moon hangs over the forest, a lamp." The reader is so captivated by Collins's fantastical idea that there's no room to predict that the poem will end with the revelation that we've met this particular wolf before; it's a magical example of the curiosity that's so unique to Collins: a method of weaving a few commonplace words into something that will wake us up, that will allow us to shed the layers of our years and finally be old enough to believe in magic once again. Here is a poet so steeped in the wisdom of classicism but especially powerful for his childlike awareness. His gift to readers is a collection entirely accessible to newer poetry enthusiasts and lifelong fans alike; it’s the experience we hoped as children that books and poetry and fairy tales would be.

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Get the book: Amazon - B&N - Indiebound - Public library