Snowbird by Iris Litt

Iris Litt writes poems filled with the big and busy heart of life. She’s a skilled observer, confidently narrating the most ordinary moments into beautifully layered, musical occasions. In Snowbird, she’s turned her capable lens on the annual rite of wintering inFlorida: poems dip a toe into a sea of love, loss, grief, joy. Fronded with a shimmering sense of place, deftly peppered with the daily conundrums and stuff of daily life, these feel like the culmination of a great intelligence who took herself for a gorgeous, fruitful swim.  This is a collection to be picked up and read and read again, like a good friend you can always count on to surprise you in the best ways, which makes perfect sense. Smart, heartfelt, musical, witty, Litt is a pleasure to read.

 –Jana Martin

The simple beauty of persistence flows through Iris Litt’s poetry.  Nature becomes for her both in the sun of the South and the snow of the North a nourishing phenomenon.  Bayous, river streams, the cold mountain facing her home, and even the splintering wood floor and unpicked-up garbage provide a gratitude for life.  Her book is a lyric testament to the salvation of little things.

 –Martin Tucker

These poems carry us, easily, eloquently, wisely, to and from the high mountains to the sandy shores. Ms. Litt has written a beautiful book of poems filled with the spirit of place and the ways it affects us.

 –Phillip X Levine