Because "the past denies that one long night ago it was the future," Ewing's collection speaks to timelessness as both conqueror and protector. The poems evoke a natural world at odds with humanity and the violence that accrues when the two intersect. Each poem is mired in suspense, waiting: for death-or worse, for catastrophic failures to occur that will render the world unalterably changed. Grappling with time and mortality and loss, Ewing honestly and deftly renders a present in which there is much to be mourned because there is much to love, even that which, once witnessed, is shed as "living ash floating up and up and up." -Chelsea Dingman

Man and nature are both at odds and in harmony in Jeff Ewing's Wind Apples. Ewing understands that "we are raised for reasons that aren't ours, plans so obscure we may never know their past." A less accomplished observer might find this a reason for despair, but Ewing reminds us of "spring pulsing inside...waiting." It is this acceptance of the interwoven nature of our existence, where the longing for a child echoes in a car's refusal to start, the catching of a fish predicts a child's health, that makes Ewing's debut so striking. -Al Maginnes