Yesterday Echoes by Chris Wood

Poet, Chris Wood, takes us on a harvest of memories that are so detail rich that they can be tasted and felt like the sweetness of honey and the rough grit of loss. Her book is a true gift of remembrance and a tribute to her family as well as Appalachian life. Wood makes us recall everything from pigtails to Zippo lighters and takes a chore like going to the dry cleaners as an adult a passageway to memory. Her chapbook, Yesterday Echoes, is a collection where the present stirs the warmth of the past like a cup of hot tea. 

–Natalie Kimbell, author of On Phillips Creek 

In Yesterday Echoes, Chris Wood weaves a tapestry of memory that resonates with the familiar warmth of treasured photographs that come to life. Each poem unfolds with cinematic precision, inviting readers to step through doorways into moments both ordinary and sacred. As a children’s book author, I’m captivated by Wood’s gift for distilling complex emotions into imagery so vivid you can almost touch it. These poems don’t simply recall the past; they resurrect it, allowing us to inhabit those fleeting moments once more. Yesterday Echoes reminds us that our family stories, however humble, contain universes of meaning that shape who we become. A stunning collection that will leave you reaching for your own memory book, heart full, eyes misty. 

–Wendy Chance, author of The Great Outdoorsy Day!: Story Book 

Chris Wood knows her roots. She carries ancestors in her blood, and in the memories that live beyond her DNA. Just as her father “slings the soul of the (honeybee) hive” into mason jars, so this poet slings the soul of her history into the words of this collection. Though her parents might “say nothing, do everything”, these poems say everything, giving voice to a rich heritage and its harvest of stories. These are luscious poems, infused with a triad of food, faith, and work—and shining in the center of it all, the meaning of “home.” 

—Sandy Coomer, author of The Broken Places