Reading Wind

Third Place Winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2023

Reading Wind is a beautiful tribute to a father, written in a daughter's favorite language-poetry. These poems celebrate the life of the author's father-a rural physician, accomplished musician, and man who was one with the earth-and take the reader on an imagery-rich journey of mourning and healing.

"From the moment we enter Barrett's Reading Wind, we are stunned into awareness of the beauty and fragility of the human and natural world."

-Judith H. Montgomery, author of Passion (Oregon Book Award for Poetry)

"In these amazing poems is an opportunity to drink into our souls the words of love for a life well lived."

-William Ellis, Ph.D., Professor of Literature and Howard Payne University President (retired)

"Reading Wind immerses readers in a delightful nexus of botany, biography, medicine, and memory."

- Annemarie E. Hamlin, Ph.D., VP for Academic Affairs, Central Oregon Community College

"Barrett's poems are pages of music, passing on to us a profound medicine of leaf, bird, heart, song."

-Thomas R. Smith, author of Medicine Year

"This is a work of discernible unity and personal truth, a journey the reader may begin gladly and finish with a sense of renewal."

-Diane Allerdyce, Professor of Humanities and author of Whatever It Is I Was Giving Up