Surrender of Water in Hidden Places, Poems by Subhaga Bacon
To love a place, to feel inspired to care for it, you first must know it. Surrender of Water offers us an intimate glimpse of Bacon’s embrace of the Methow and Wenatchee River watersheds. In language that mirrors the landscape—fluid in places, rugged in others—Bacon explores not just wild places, but also the first people to call it home. Surrender of Water is more than a praise of place, it’s an appeal for action. “You, too, hold the directions in you,” she tells the reader. “Open yourself. Pay attention to what calls you home.”
Ashley Lodato, Methow Conservancy
These are elegant meditations on two rivers and their watersheds, the Methow and the Wenatchee, informed by and appreciative of William Stafford’s river poems, and trustworthy in their own intimate knowledge of these waters, hidden landscapes and histories. The speaker is attentive, listening, egoless, giving voice to water, calling living things by their names. Subhaga Crystal Bacon creates a sacred space inside these pages where we can surrender to beauty.
Kathleen Flenniken, author of Plume and Post Romantic
Surrender of Water in Hidden Places by Subhaga Crystal Bacon lingers under Lodgepole Pines long enough to notice: “The understory is lush green leaves of maples/ so close to the bank, they must be under water/ in early spring.” Riverine meditations are laid down with clarity and delicacy in this powerful collection of poems. In these lines are the currents of regard, close observation, and reverence that allow the poet to engage with the utterly singular beauties of the Methow, the Twisp, and the Wenatchee in ways that honor the eternal complexities of these waterways.
Laura Da’, author of Tributaries and Instruments of the True Measure
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