Peace Is a Pelican by Louise Moises

Peace Is a Pelican, by Louise Moises, is a compelling tour of the natural world that showcases our human interaction with flora and fauna as well as with each other. The poems in this collection are rich with color and precise imagery. We are introduced to “a choir of soft caws” and “a ministry of Scrub Jays.” The poems “Winter Gardening” and “Sisyphus” elicited a surprising respect for spiders. Moises’ eye is a fine‑tuned microscope through which she shares her keen observations of nature with sensuous language.

‑‑Sandra Anfang, author of Finishing School (Kelsay Books, 2023)

A sense of a compelling, powerfully speaking natural world pervades this book and its delightfully crafted poems. Monarchs emerging from cocoons with “wet stained‑glass wings,” swallows swooping in a waterfall, a small triumphant girl on a big horse evoke a world of order, well‑being, and “kind colors”; but a dove flying past a hospital window is a deeply perplexing omen. There’s adventure, too, as when the author and her son shoot down the “raging staircase” of the Arkansas River rapids, and he speaks of his pride in her. The author’s eye never fails in its acuity, nor do her humor or the subtle, strong rhythms deftly attached to her thoughts.

–Dorothy Gilbert, author of Marie de France: Poems: A Norton Critical Edition and Fox Woman: Poems

In the poems of Louise Moises, one finds bountiful joy and reverence for peace in the beauty, rhythm, harmony, and colors of nature. Watching the precision of a kingfisher practicing its craft, noting the hoof prints of elk, a pelican soaring high above the shore as pelicans have done for thousands of years, a perfectly still jack rabbit on the trail, these poems celebrate the beauty, wisdom, and colors, found in sunsets, on shores, in mountains, and the opportunities that nature provides for us to make our own discoveries. These beautifully crafted poems guide us, and show us how, in the ways of nature, we can find solace and wonder. Peace is a Pelican is a gorgeous collection, each poem gifting the reader a restorative pause to appreciate and absorb the peace and majesty that surrounds us before we, as does nature, move forward.

–Guy Biederman, Nova Nights