Cabin Sketches: poems

by Nicholas Trandahl

Genres: Poetry, Nature

118 pages, Paperback

Published January 16, 2025

About the author

Nicholas Trandahl is a poet, journalist, outdoorsman, and U. S. Army veteran. He lives in Wyoming with his wife and daughters. He has had four poetry collections and a novel published. His most recent poetry collection is Mountain Song.
Trandahl’s poetry collection Bravery was the recipient of the 2019 Wyoming Writers Milestone Award, and his poem “Francis and Sistani” was nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in various literary journals, including but not limited to the James Dickey Review, Sky Island Journal, High Plains Register, The Dewdrop, Duck Head Journal, Resurrection Magazine, Dreich Magazine, Voices de la Luna, Deep Wild Journal, Wild Roof Journal, Twenty Bellows, and anthologies from Middle Creek Publishing, Wee Sparrow Poetry Press, and the New York Quarterly.
Additionally, Trandahl serves as the Chairman of the annual Eugene V. Shea National Poetry Contest and is the poetry editor for the literary journal The Dewdrop.

Reviews

[Mandie Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another great collection from Nicholas Trandahl. In the first couple of poems, I noticed the powerful ending lines. There's always a point in reading Trandahl's poems when I sink in and feel a sense of familiarity. They're meditative, even in the formatting of the lines as they flow across and down the page creating a sense of breathing in and breathing out.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautiful collection of poems. Feels like you're with him in the woods, experiencing the snow, the sounds, the wildlife. I loved the emotion evoked in the writing. Loved it so much I even annotated my copy!

[Ingrid Calderon-Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an avid fan of Trandahl's work—this feels like an end of an era.
A deep calm embodies this body of work.
A mantra.
Something has both a finality and a resurrection within these poems.

"What looms doomed in the heart?" he asks—as if we wouldn't want the answer in the following poem...

There is love, cold, earthensoul, recollection and soft armor in this collection.

There's a sense of unshackling, of being purveyors to some great unraveling by the books end.

This is his best collection of poems to date.

Curious to see where his writing is headed off to next as he gracefully comes down from the cross...

[Kimberly Phinney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another brilliant work from one of my favorite poets and outdoorsmen. Trandahl’s poetry is truly special as an amalgam of nature, faith, wonder, and ache. Get Cabin Sketches and then get his other recent collections, like Mountain Song and Purgatory.

[Erica Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicholas Trandahl's poetry collections read like verbal tone poems, and Cabin Sketches is one of his most contemplative and musical to date. Listen for notes of "hoarded gold of Corinth," "secret places and sylvan rites," and "holy knowledge in dawn's embers." I swear you can smell his earthy pipe smoke across the poems.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure wonder and magic. Deeply atmospheric, meditative, and moving, there's a clarity and power about Nicholas' work that puts you right there in the mountains and moods and internal and external explorations of his life in Wyoming. One of my favorite reads of the last year. Will be re-reading. Deeply love this