In the Meat Years

Kindra McDonald has given us a calendar as elemental as the very first one, 28 cuts nicked into bone. Poems move from winter to winter, tracked in flowers and fruit and the insects and birds of a garden "somewhere between jungle and Eden." The natural world tells us what we need to know: "I would build a nest of love, pull twigs from concern/pinecones out of worry." And the body persists through trials of lust and childrearing, decline and death, the tale of lumps and teeth and blood and bone. "Hydrangeas" reminds us that sometimes love must be renewed at hazard: "I hopped from the car /at a perfectly timed red light, ran between intersections/to harvest the overflowing bushes, their blue a beacon of calm." Close attention has been paid; the poems of In the Meat Years reward similar reading.Valerie Nieman, author of Leopard Lady: A Life in VerseAn urgent exploration of the mystery, menace, and solace of our encounters with the natural world-in the wild or brought to the table-In the Meat Years evokes a deep sense of wonder, loss, and surrender to a mindful joy singed by regret. This deeply sensual collection pays awakened attention to what it means to be fully alive: "This first bite, this who created this, who?" Lisa Beech Hartz, author of The Goldfish WindowThe fierce light in Kindra McDonald's In the Meat Years blazes through the pitch-black falls and ascents of her experience in poems so tender, so tended with surety of craft that you feel them in your marrow. Her words are delicious and devastating, from the "buggy hum" in "Honeysuckle" to the "steeple of . . . hands" in "Drowning." The title alone speaks volumes. Suzanne Underwood Rhodes, author of Flying Yellow