"'Light on light on light . . . burning beautifully, ' Zinnia Hansen makes a shining debut with this luminous collection, a potent distillation of 'every beautiful thought at once.'" -Rena Priest, Washington State Poet Laureate '21-23

"'I took a hammer/ to my words, / but forgot the nails, ' Zinnia writes in her debut collection. As each poem alternately sprawls and condenses, breathes horizontal and compresses down, a form of worship emerges at the nexus of watching a world burn and wondering 'who is going to cut a hole in the/ horizon and let out the smoke, ' feeling aging turn in on itself and begin again like 'Russian nesting dolls filled with moist earth, ' and finding reverence in the paradoxes of transcendental awe and a desire 'to burn the/ garden God planted in my belly.' The book transforms into its own cathedral of sun and the particular smell of Pacific Northwest trees-and, as it examines how 'even love is a form of deconstruction, ' you are invited in to be transformed with it." - C. R. Grimmer, author of The Lyme Letters

"Zinnia Hansen finds love in artichokes, salmon, and the yellow sign 'telling you to slow as you drive down our neighborhood road, ' and mystery in the mother who 'captures the weather of the world in a cup.' She falls asleep 'reading about duende; reading, radiating duende' and struggles to make peace with the body, the question of God, and the persistent uncertainty of belief. Here is a beautiful young mind writing her way into the great conversation. Read Spikenard and celebrate." -Kathleen Flenniken, author of Post Romantic