With this stunning new cycle of poems about death and survival, Sue Westwind immediately becomes one of the most important voices writing today from American's heartland prairies. Her towering lyrical power, her ability to tell even the most heartbreaking stories in ways that make you feel like you were personally witness to them, and an authorial honesty-a willingness to look at herself, her family, and bottomless grief itself without flinching-will take your breath away.

These are poems that will cause you to ache and deeply rejoice in the same instant. Take a deep breath, then dive in.

“It isn’t easy to sing ‘in praise of how all things must end,’ but in Man Dies, Leaves Widow on Earth, Sue Westwind wanders the long corridors of grief and shares both the hollowing days and the inevitable invitation to bloom. Both practical and lyrical, these poems invite us into the tender, mysterious seasons of loss.

Westwind brings voice to unspeakable sorrow and with the same fragile tenacity, lets herself be found by the beauty that is always here. ” — Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of All the Honey and host of The Poetic Path“This is a beautifully written and accessible series of poems that explore real grief and suggest a map to a journey of healing.

Poet Sue Westwind has an easy, lyrical style that is a pleasure to read, and her collection contains fresh and valuable insights like this one: ‘The dead. .

. their going yet staying is a gift we can’t open.

’” — Luther Allen, author of The View from Lummi Island and contributor to A Spiritual Thread“Man Dies, Leaves Widow on Earth is a journey into the heart of darkness where, led by poet Sue Westwind, we follow the pathways and trails of pain, grief, and recovery. Welcome to catharsis.

” — David Lee, former Utah poet laureate and author, most recently, of Rusty Barbed Wire: Selected Poems“Sue Westwind’s book of poems about losing her husband can help ease us through the thicket of emotions grief drops in our own paths. Her gaze at herself is unflinching.

She explores with deft words what’s left her in the wake of her partner’s passing and takes us on a journey through both the loss and the luminosity of what comes after. From the ‘abyss of [his] absence’ to ‘the faint hosannas of new relationships,’ she takes our hand in hers, sharing the way ‘beauty joins in / when grief walks among us.

’” — Art Goodtimes, director of the Talking Gourds Poetry Program and poet-in-residence of the Telluride Mushroom Festival. .