Transit: Poems

by David Baker

A beloved nature poet reflects on environmental change, political transformation, and the ineluctable fact of aging.


We are—human and nonhuman—all on the move. In keenly observed verse, David Baker carries us across physical and emotional geographies, moving seamlessly from deep woods, city streets, bay shores, and creek beds to the contours of his own psyche and the larger cultural circumstances that mark off our lives.


But these dynamic poems are grounded in a deep sense of home, posing poignant questions about where we live, what we seek, and how we find our way through the world. Both an imaginative point of departure and a love letter to familiar places, the poems in Transit pay studied attention to the topographies of the world around us and the terrain of the heart.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Hardcover

Published January 13, 2026

About the author

David Baker is a poet, critic, and educator. He has received honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Society of America, and more. Baker lives in Granville, Ohio, where he is emeritus professor of English at Denison University.

Reviews

[Jenna Goldsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn. I don't even know. There are just some insanely good poems in here. But I'm a David Baker fan. He's not for everybody.

[Peggy Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do we seek as we find our way through the world? Baker pays attention to the topographies and terrain of the heart as he moves seamlessly from deep woods, city streets, and creek beds to the larger cultural circumstances that mark our lives. There's an intricately woven--and musical--mixture of language--and form--from daily conversation to scientific reports, from newspaper prose to the sonnet. You learn how to "talk" with a firefly, how to spot an "errant" stone, the song of a bananaquit. Know these reflect Baker's interest in the ancient Greek poetic form called the Georgic--which taught you how to do a thing. What other forms are echoed here? How do ghost forms resonate throughout the book? What musical cadences bring it together--and break it beautifully apart?

[Page Starzinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Come down to us. Come down with your song,/ little wren. The world is in pieces.//” David Baker’s new poetry collection, Transit, couldn’t be more timely or timeless. Luminous fragments sing together. Phrasing more like music in its harmonies than a regular pattern of audible beats. Ghost forms shimmer here—sonnets especially, also haibun, ghost syllabics, haiku, dramatic monologues, eclogues, georgics. . . . We hear bits of lost conversations and stray lines of poetry by others. Gloriously stitched together—the shadow and light—into an enchanting weave of sorrow and wonder. “My heart lies open to the world,” Baker writes and so he welcomes into these lines: love, family, politics, corruption, climate change, bats, birds, deer, “the scent of old water, and stones.” Even poems that ruminate about documentary art, extending the very idea of what poetry is.
A book to keep dear and to give to your dear ones.

[Howard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some interesting stuff in here, but nothing I found really potent and memorable. No turns of phrase that really spoke to me, no verses that sang out. Poetry can be very personal. Sometimes it just does hit for you.

[E.G. Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the first half of this book more than the last half. The first half is like pretty nature and the last half is just him musing about tree names and being hit by a car (turns out a strangers car and not his wife’s car, which would have made it a much funnier poem).

[grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful collection of poetry!