Slouching Toward Radiance

This is a collection of poems and thoughts that call to the Outliers; the ones who stoop low to see the wonder hidden beneath an autumn leaf. I have walked with a reverence through this collection, and I was not left untouched by a single poem. In a voice reminiscent of Mary Oliver, Heidi invites the reader to live their life open to the infinite possibility of beauty finding them everywhere. A book to treasure. 

-Liezel Graham, author of Stripped and A Counting of Love

In Slouching Toward Radiance, Barr's presence is felt as an attentive, compassionate mind at work to convey the essence of life. She's taking on the big stuff-happiness, contentment, tension, joy-with poetry punctuated by novel ideas and unexpected, arresting phrases.

-Laurie Allmann, author of An Hour From Now

Heidi Barr's Slouching Toward Radiance is a poetic exhortation. She nudges readers out of nostalgia and drops us into the present moment so we can exist "one choice, one breath, one [heart]beat / at a time." Grounded in nature, Barr's work exudes an elemental way of knowing and draws wisdom from observation. She eschews exotic flora and fauna found only in small pockets of our planet and turns, instead, to images accessed in the "holy ordinary": rain, stars, seeds, birds. Didactic in purpose, Barr's poems call readers to a "purposeful joy," ask us to do what we "are made to do," and invite us to join her by "walking through words into wonder." Pay attention, Barr says, to shifts in seasons, to snowflakes, to "skin meeting air." Read this lovely collection. We all need her blessing: "May You Always" / Listen to the story / in the cracked coffee mug." 

-Christine Stewart-Nuez, 2019/20 Poet Laureate of South Dakota & author of The Poet & The Architect