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Reviews

""Meg Smith's poems touch the heart and move the spirit, not by posturing and presenting grand, abstract themes, but by celebrating the small, intimate, heart-tugging and often humorous moments in a woman's life, particularly a mother's life: practical wisdom learned from grandmothers and imparted to daughters, secrets kept, rueful apologies made. These seemingly small moments are enlarged by Smith's cleareyed vision and generous imagination--they become sacramental moments, imparting their sweet, simple, much-needed grace. 'How lovely is your dwelling place, ' one poem repeats, depicting with a few vivid details the landscapes of the poet's childhood home as well as her present home in Vermont. I would add one more 'location' to this litany: how lovely are these poems, dwelling places of spirit, which as readers we get to enter and enjoy."" --Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies ""Here is a remarkable collection of poems pierced through with light on the wonders, griefs, and ironic moments that lie, often unnoticed and uncelebrated, within the vocation of motherhood. From a careful attentiveness to the exquisite delights that rest in nurturing young bodies and souls to the inevitable failures, Meg gives place to her own childhood, the present beauty and difficulties of mothering, and the longings for the future of her family, all held in the grace of God. Her evocative images and crisp wording penetrate the heart, remind the soul, and refresh the intentions of every mother, new and experienced."" --Gayle Heaslip, Anglican Priest ""Margaret Smith's ode to motherhood is honest, tender, and alive, with language that sings. Drawing out the sacred in the ordinary, these poems read almost as short liturgies--some of praise, some of lament. Humor hides here, as does profundity. One cannot read this fine compilation without fresh gratitude for those who have mothered us and wonder at the divine design which includes all of us in the story of giving and caring for new life."" --Abigail Carroll, author of Cup My Days Like Water ""We come to these poems for their mother-wonder--bedazzlement and bewilderment intermixed. Reading these poems, we are comforted to share with Meg Smith the heart feeling that all our words of beloved children feel like first words, riddled with breaking, but rich with becoming. Reading these poems, we are assured of a Lord who hears, who understands our words even before we do, who makes them into poetry."" --Tiffany Eberle Kriner, Professor of English, Wheaton College ""Margaret Smith's poems offer us love without descending into mere sentimentality, pain without self-pity, and an invitation to laugh not only at the humor of parenting's obviously comic moments, but even at--perhaps especially at--the most maddening of them, making that daily chaos so much less mundane. That thread of humor adds to the poignancy of the more intimate moments as when the poet sits in the doctor's office listening to a diagnosis of a husband's cancer and notes simply that 'our lives are china tea cups / in the hands of a toddler.' You don't need to be a mother or even a parent to appreciate this beautiful collection."" --Matthew Dickerson, author of Aslan's Breath: Seeing the Holy Spirit in Narnia

Author Information

Margaret H. Smith lives with her husband and four children along the shores of Lake Champlain in Vermont. She works as a mental health therapist at her private practice, New Song Counseling.

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