Martin Willitts Jr

Harvest Time Martin Willitts Jr

Poetry. Inside this collection are poems of great patience and attention. As Willitts writes, 'I fell into earth like seed'--so too does the reader, into a remarkable flow of poems. Each page is an act of deep listening, and an ache of nostalgia that is tethered to simplicity; heirlooms, spinning wool, and horseshoes--bringing to life the sacred, the connection to land and difficult work, love, anger, and questioning. Because time moves at the pace of lessons learned, true wisdom and beauty are able to shine through. Skilled with arrangement, Willitts is able to draw the reader into each poem as an experience, each carefully chosen word on the page like 'adding a pinch of salt to make things rise.' The finished product--'a waterfall / just before a river rushes to leap over.'--Megan Merchant