Heading Out by Nancy Lael Braun

Although these poems are about walking, they are more essentially about an acute awareness:  of the world outside us, faithfully observed in all its weathers; of the inner spirit as it is transformed, regenerated, “smoothed,” and “dislodged” by a ramble or a stroll; and of the body that carries us. The walks are mostly solitary, but the poems celebrate connection to a world that waits for us “like a dog,…its leash in its mouth.” Braun carves out precise and innovative imagery, and her sentences fairly sing with lyrical cadences. Yet, even as she touches on profound themes, she speaks to us in an unpretentious voice, suffused with humor and comfortably plainspoken.

–Jeanne Emmons, author of The Red Canoe

In this radiant debut collection, Heading Out, Nancy Lael Braun transforms quotidian routine—a daily walk, for instance—into ritual rooted in wonder. The branches of winter trees are “fish bones,” snow falls in swirls of “Pristine confetti,” and even a bleak winter day offers the delights of “an icy dessert to spoon.” Braun’s poetry is exquisitely attentive to the fact of embodiment, radiating clarity and balance. The poems brim with insight alchemized into wisdom by humor. As Braun’s little grandson quips, marveling at “a galaxy of red ants swarming / over an entire sidewalk”: “This is what you miss when you drive.” Heading Out shows us the way!

–Cynthia Hogue, author of In June the Labyrinth