Bloodroot

The poems in Bill King's first full-length collection articulate a life grounded in the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains. These poems follow the root of a life nourished by and inseparable from garden soil, mountain rivers, and the hearths and kitchen table of home back to its origins. "Grown Boy" recalls a solitary childhood spent exploring creeks and two-lanes. In "Black Kite," a mature father's sense of home and family take on depth and gratitude after a cancer diagnosis and chronic illness. Poems like "This World Should Be Enough" look beyond personal mortality to honor the mystery and beauty of wild landscapes long threatened by the violence of the extraction industry. Finally, "To Have and To Hold" pledges fealty to love in all of its forms, a stance that makes the book's meditations on mortality and acceptance, especially "Fifty Gardens In" as hopeful as they are honest. By turns narrative and lyrical, these accessible poems find metaphor in native landscapes.