The Universe of Little Beaver Lake by Laurie Higi

“The big dipper is pulsing with suspense. / Though my mind can take it all in, / What emerges are only these simple words,” writes Laurie Higi, in her lovely book, The Universe of Little Beaver Lake. The remarkable simplicity of her poems yields a vision that is anything but simple, drawing us into a conversation with the speaker and into her conversation with the immensity of the north woods, the flashings of fish, and stars that fall “like fireflies.” Higi’s poems speak with intimacy and directness. With love as their locus, they move beyond the personal to demonstrate how attentiveness to the moment yields the expansive vision of “Stars that flow / From mouth to paper.” Laurie Higi’s stunning poetic debut calls forth the stars all the way from Canada’s Little Beaver Lake into the tender places of our lives.

–George Kalamaras, Poet Laureate of Indiana (2014-2016)

The Universe of Little Beaver Lake, Laurie Higi transports us to a place so filled with beauty, it is nearly painful. We watch a speaker fall in love with the lake and land, and we see how this vast expanse fills her soul. The language of the poems is in one breath concrete, and in another, surreal. She says, “I received everything/I wanted/Except an aurora borealis.” After reading this collection, I have received everything I wanted too–though perhaps we can travel to the lake and catch the aurora borealis together.

–Sarah Sandman, author of I Speak Moan and The Sinew of Forty Seven Years