Many Ways to Say It
“Eva Saulitis is a poet who inhabits the planet with all her senses attuned.Many Ways to Say Itis a collection rich with acute observation of the non-human denizens of the world, botanical, animal, mineral, and rich in characters, too, from Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, to Shakespeare’s Cordelia. These poems metamorphose through the book in form and voice, holding image and thought up to an endless light, examining and singing all the refractions and possibilities.Many Ways to Say Itis a stunning debut collection of poems we readers can trust and inhabit and relish.”—Derick Burleson, author ofEjoandNever Night“Since reading Eva Saulitis’ book of essays,Leaving Resurrection, I have been eager to see more of her work. Now, this collection of poems offers a whole and wholly different engagement with the world. The ‘Injured and blistered amen’ ofMany Ways to Say Itblends a naturalist’s observations, interior investigation, and deep wonder in poems that revel in and interrogate the world they spring from.  Language and sound echo in new ways (‘the kettle’s hiss, the GPS’), and there’s a formal range that amplifies the pleasure of the poems’ subjects. The Cordelia poems, which engage with muskeg, domesticity, and the life of Linnaeus, are the core of this book. Here, Saulitis shows how her verse grows from the physical world (red squirrel, skunk cabbage, mending) and into the historic, emotional, and literary. It’s a reach and scope that thrills. What strikes me is the deliberate unfinishment of many of the poems—Saulitis uses form and syntax to illustrate that her work is part of a larger, ongoing story. Reading the poems of this book is like dipping into a river, looking around under water, and then rising to breathe again, refreshed and quickened. —Elizabeth Bradfield, author ofInterpretive WorkandApproaching Ice“Naturalist and writer Eva Saulitis’ stunning new book melts (marries) the gorgeous and dangerous natural world with the moist, hidden geography of the female body. These poems are miraculous songs of grief and pressure. They refuse to let the reader (listener) turn away. Wecan’trefuseto hear the poet’s ‘many ways of saying’ that life comes and comes and comes, no matter what the cost. A wonderful book."  —Hilda Raz, author ofWhat HappensandAll Odd and Splendid“Eva Saulitis is part of nature—seawater and glacial ice, alder marsh and birch forest. She’s part scientist, part oboist, part lover, part Latvian, part Alaskan. Her smart and passionate poems bring us wildly alive. These new poems enact an eternal thirst for mindful, spiritual, fully-embodied ways of thinking and feeling. Open and curious, Eva Saulitis embraces with an ‘injured and blistered amen’ the longings, the terrors, and the glories of our brief time on this ever-changing earth.”—Peggy Shumaker, author ofGnawed Bones,Alaska State Writer Laureate