Prayer Gardening

Constance Brewer writes in Prayer Gardening, "my eyes adjust to nuance," and my eyes do too, as a reader of this evocative chapbook that explores daily life with fresh eyes. These are poems of gratitude, in Kathleen Cassen Mickelson's words, for the landscape "in which I love everything/the traffic, the gas pumps/the bus bench, the library...," while also acknowledging "the hunger beneath every song." The interplay between the two poets immerses us in family relationships, encounters with the natural world, and most of all, a mature understanding of the contradictions in all of our lives, for "What is love but a failed picture of the moon."

-Joanne Durham, author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl and On Shifting Shoals

The earth-toned poems in Prayer Gardening by Constance Brewer and Kathleen Cassen Mickelson burble along the riverbank, lace themselves among the trees, tease us through seasons, give us glimpses of dreams, the yeasty smell of bread rising, the moon, angels, and even origami. And, oh, the birds-glorious, full-throated, "each voice as one small part of a choir," (KCM) "light arrowing down/ to anoint... with purpose" (CB). Though there are two distinct voices here, one cannot help but deduce they are both channeling the same dazzling earth-centric deity.

-Kari Gunter-Seymour, Ohio Poet Laureate, author of Alone in the House of My Heart

Prayer Gardening sparkles with birds, stars, and snowflakes. In these pages we feel touch "sweep my soul/back into my body" and "hear the hunger beneath every song." Constance Brewer and Kathleen Cassen Mickelson's words call us to "whisper thanks for this breath," reminding us to fully inhabit our lives-as the best poetry always does.

-Laura Grace Weldon, 2019 Ohio Poet of the Year, author of Portals