every riven thing by Amrita Skye Blaine

Light pours through these poems. Even as they face the mess and “let pain be pain,” they wake us like dawn-light—quietly, tenderly. A beautiful collection woven both with ache and with awe.

–Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, host of “The Poetic Path” and author of The Unfolding.

Amrita Skye Blaine’s poems seem drawn from the well of some deeper place, no word wasted, every image essential in revealing “the clean tingle of being alive.” Perhaps the opening poem of this necessary collection says it best—we are each “riven hearts radiating love,” and poems like these, which give attention to the beauties and heartbreaks of this world in equal measure, are themselves “the piercing light” that “pours through the cracks,” the healing balm we all need to reawaken to nature, each other, ourselves.

–James Crews, author of Kindness Will Save the World, and editor of the collections The Wonder of Small Things, The Path to Kindness, and How to Love the World

every riven thing is an apt title for Amrita Skye Blaine’s collection of poems that delve deeply into the world of one who is at home with daily meditation. Each poem focuses on a single aspect of the contemplative life—from an owl hoot and raccoon rustle to a moment of camaraderie with other mothers in anguish over their infants undergoing surgery. This poet carries us from the miniscule to the infinite.

–Fran Claggett Holland, author of six books of poetry, and many books about teaching writing. Her most recent book is The Shape a Wing Makes.