Without a Field Guide

by Nicole Robinson

A poetry debut combining lyric intensity with narrative sweep, attending to the bare reality of trauma and its aftermath, focusing on the healing process through a wide variety of naturalistic subjects and informed by the practice of narrative medicine. Nicole Robinson's debut collection, Without a Field Guide , combines lyric intensity with narrative sweep. This poet attends to the bare reality of trauma and its aftermath, the challenge of navigating life "without a field guide / to identify who I am or where I'm flying." But if these poems focus on an individual healing process, they also surprise with their wide variety of subjects and tones, as with their depiction of a contemporary America marked by "reactionary blisters" as well as subtle beauties. At the center of the collection lies this poet's unsentimental yet deeply joyful regard for the natural world that she portrays with vivid originality. Immersing herself and her reader in this ecology, Robinson ultimately returns to the human world with a new, hard-won tenderness. Poetry. Nature. LGBTQIA+ Studies. Women's Studies.

84 pages, Hardcover

Published May 9, 2023

Reviews

[John Burroughs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love so many things about this book. I feel especially moved by and connected to its final two poems, "Memory" and "Tender, how."

[Bruce Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published poet and narrative expert Nicole Robinson writes with care and elegance. Her work, drawn from both the natural world and from internal landscapes, take the reader to places both beautiful and agonizing. A fine collection.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning. I loved every moment of this collection, even when it stung a little.