Sailing To the Edges by Jennifer M Phillips

Sing with the poet, sailing in pellucid waters veined with delight. Stay. Breathe together in dark violent seas that threaten to smother our painstakingly composed arias. Ours too the darkness, and “just beyond the darkness is the light.” These poems gift readers with “real presence,” the glory in the pain of human experience.

—Margaret R. Miles, Professor Emerita of Historical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley

Inspired by the author’s own sea voyage, Sailing to the Edges by Jennifer M. Phillips traces the history of polar exploration and the fragile beauty of the natural world. At its heart is the story of  Roald Amundsen’s 1897 expedition to Antarctica, imagined through the haunting lens of a polar winter. Woven alongside are poems that reflect Phillips’s personal journey from Iceland to Norway, bringing past and present into conversation across shifting seas. Through these meditations on exploration, survival, and wonder, Phillips illuminates the challenges of our changing climate while reminding us that “the unfolding of all mysteries is also your vision, song, and story.”

–Leah Huete de Maines, Poet-in-Residence Emerita at Northern Kentucky University

Inspired by the author’s own sea voyage, Sailing to the Edges by Jennifer M. Phillips traces the history of polar exploration and the fragile beauty of the natural world. At its heart is the story of  Roald Amundsen’s 1897 expedition to Antarctica, imagined through the haunting lens of a polar winter. Woven alongside are poems that reflect Phillips’s personal journey from Iceland to Norway, bringing past and present into conversation across shifting seas. Through these meditations on exploration, survival, and wonder, Phillips illuminates the challenges of our changing climate while reminding us that “the unfolding of all mysteries is also your vision, song, and story.”

–Leah Huete de Maines, Poet-in-Residence Emerita at Northern Kentucky University