What I Ask

These poems are beautiful, intimate conversations with the earth, in which "branches speak for my heart" and "the birds were singing a song of rain." And yet Marjorie Moorhead does not turn away from the "relentless siege and plunder." These are clear-eyed, detail-rich, passionate poems born out of receptivity and keen attention to the world. Yes to "the day's treasure!" Yes to "our time to sing." Yes to this lyric path toward cherishing what is here. I love this book for its tenderness, its ferocity, its willingness to "greet this day as it comes."

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In her newest collection, What I Ask, Marjorie Moorhead speaks to us of all she holds truly precious. With subtle turns of language, her heartfelt poems span the full emotional terrain of nostalgia, joy, loss, and wonder. She speaks with honesty and humor, sometimes coming from unlikely places. Birds, for example, play a significant role. "If I were feather-coated, what would the pattern be?" Trees, too, feature large. Moorhead's poems are generous yet unsentimental, quiet yet resonant, grounded in the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself. Moorhead is a poet to cherish and applaud. This is a collection to treasure.

-Ina Anderson

In What I Ask, Marjorie Moorhead exhorts all of us who walk the earth as tenants to abandon our destructive ways, all the way down to the micro plastic trash we make, and revere the many blessings of the natural world. Her poems are simultaneously gentle and urgent, ultimately resolving in reminders to remember what it means to be human at the edge of time. Moorhead sees the natural world fully with tenderness, intention, and loving attention as she points out that, through stewardship, we have the capacity to undo the damage we've done. What I Ask inspires us to get to it.

-Michael Kleber-Diggs