Level Watch

by Mary Ardery

Based on her experience as a wilderness guide for women in a substance-abuse treatment program, Mary Ardery’s visceral debut is set deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. These narrative-lyric poems chronicle a labor both physically and emotionally intense: bearing witness to campfire confessions, facing uphill climbs and frigid rivers and wildfires, reckoning with relapses and overdoses. Here is a nuanced exploration of intoxication and recovery, the ways we share and manage pain, and how our personal histories can haunt us but also lead us down transformative paths. Firmly grounded in time and place, part record and part elegy, this is a book for those who have been affected by addiction and all who have ever sought solace or redemption in nature.

Genres: Poetry

106 pages, Paperback

Published September 23, 2025

Reviews

[Matt Haeske · Rating 5 out of 5]

My old friend Mary wrote this book of poetry. I’m neither a poet nor a regular reader of poetry. Even so, it’s obvious to me what an accomplishment this collection is.

Here’s the ending lines of “Learning of Your Overdose”, an excerpt that I’ve reread about 25 times and is now tattooed on my brain:

"You carried a photo of your grinning nephews through those long months of treatment, but you wore out their smiles

with all that unfolding, refolding. You said it was the only way to make each day bearable. An overused crease just like

the bend in your elbow: softening, softening, then gone."

[Fiona McGlynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning. I was delighted to receive an advance copy and opened it on a Friday night—only to find I couldn’t put it down. Ardery conjures the Blue Ridge Mountains with arresting clarity, weaving imagery that is both beautiful and deeply resonant. The collection is both accessible and richly layered, and I imagine it will speak to many readers. I was genuinely sorry to turn the final page. A beautiful, poignant book.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruined me. This book is so honest and heartfelt. I read twice and I know I'll still be crying and laughing on the 3rd read-through. A must for anyone that knows what it is to feel displaced, to worry for others years after you've seen them last, and to keep going on a heavy heart.

[JPD · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The highway is a dark scarf coiled around the mountain" (23).

I must admit, I was initially here for the Asheville aspect, coinciding with my Thomas Wolfe journey, which was abruptly cut short when I returned to academia.

Level Watch will not be considered good or bad—simply high caliber. A collection of poetry that is lovely, dreadful, and universal. Topographical literally and literarily.

This collection of poems can be read out of order or as a story, as Mary has laid out for the reader. For anyone who has battled addiction, romanticized the wilderness (I miss it so much), or nice word capital:

"Creatures watch, camouflaged in the flora, / and the leaves begin to feel like fur-one / giant animal, one consciousness" (63)

Or something a little longer:

"This place pulls its ghosts close until / it's upon me again, the season to offer comfort / to those who've lost direction, to be a gracious host / of and in the darkness, and this year with the fire, / to pray for heavy rains to return, / to not run for cover when they do" (80).

I don't really review anymore, but I noticed an email from June Road Press asking for a review, and I had some time. Reviewing can be nice sometimes.

I also finally understand maps, Mary.

[Alice Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, stunning visuals and a true journey.

[Mary Brody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - this was beautiful.

[Abbie Kiefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary Ardery's Level Watch is immersive and aching and sometimes gentle and sometimes not because this is a poet who understands nuance. Drawing on her work as a backpacking guide for women in an addiction treatment program, Ardery writes with compassion and clarity about what is wild—inside of us and around us—and how we might make peace with that. How we might "be a gracious host / of and in the darkness."

This is a beautiful book with a lush lyricism and strong sense of story. Highly recommended.

[Charlie Canning · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began reading Level Watch passim, checking the pages of poems I liked before giving that up because I liked too many. I went back to the beginning and read the book cover to cover.

Ardery’s collection of poetry and prose poems is a must read for anyone in recovery or who has known or is living with someone in recovery. Also great for those who have gone on thru-hikes like the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Coast Trail, the Camino, or the Shikoku Pilgrimage of 88 Temples. Acceptance and self-esteem return fitfully after slogging it out in all kinds of weather: sound of rain on smoldering campfires, tossing and turning in wet sleeping bags, frost on tents. Cold Novembers, stubborn days of March, steamy Julys when you’d like to be elsewhere and perhaps a different person altogether. But there’s no escape and you’ve got to grind it out. It’s a penance of sorts white-knuckling it in the woods instead of at a detox center or the friendly confines of an AA church group.

The book is layered like the bands of mists and clouds that cling to the stream beds, the tree-line and the mountaintops of the Blue Ridge. There’s Ardery, her father, and their alcoholism hanging over the poet’s role as a drug and alcohol counselor leading young women on a tough-love, boot-camp-style march through the woods. The final third is reckoning and feels strangely like one of Fitzgerald’s novels.

Great language, beautiful imagery, full of empathy for the fallen.

[Savannah Michel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite. Mary’s story telling will stick with you. I could not put this book down once I started. Mary is a poet with a true gift.

[Nina Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning, heart wrenching, yet hope-giving collection by Mary Ardery. I know I will be revisiting time and time again. Truly immersive and beautifully written!

[David Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply affecting account of addiction, recovery, and how nature and time can heal the broken things within us. A marvelous debut collection from a poet with a unique voice and convicting pathos.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning poetry that tells a complete story, but with many interwoven threads throughout. You get nature-writing, character studies, soul-searching, trauma, ghosts, and beauty.

Fear of Drowning


My first week in the Pisgah Forest, the rain does not
give up. August deluge. All the rivers rising, seductive

as a high hemline. One woman, before crossing, looks
back at me, says: This is for my kids. Then she steps

into the current, hip belt unbuckled in case she stumbles.
In case the pressure pulls her and her backpack down.

When I began working wilderness therapy, my father
sent me his AA story, the former life I don’t remember:

all the Saturday mornings he drove us drunk, three daughters
in the backseat. Our small hands sticky from McDonald’s

hotcakes. It’s this I think of in the woods, the scent of syrup,
a reason to stay when I first smell trillium: its rank odor

like a rotting animal carcass. But it’s creek crossings I hate
most of all. Every slip on a river-stone, fear floods in

and I find myself humming a lullaby. A tune to quiet
the mind as I wade through rivers, fifty pounds

on my back and a smaller pack strapped to my chest
like a baby. Once, a stranger followed my father home.

She scolded his driving, drifting—no cell phones back then
to call the police. She yelled beneath our post-bloom magnolia

and he stayed buckled. His hands on the steering wheel,
white-knuckled at ten-and-two. The three of us shocked

silent in our car seats behind him, and the station wagon’s
tires crushing pink petals, tender as flesh. When I see

the swollen river yank the woman down, I drop my packs
and run in humming. Self-soothing. Like how a mother

sings to calm her baby and it slows her pulse just the same.
This woman, gasping, pushes up on her own. A surge

of adrenaline. She still bears the weight of her pack.
In those long-ago night hours, when my father stumbled

down the hallway in his sleep- and vodka-stupor,
he reached behind the bars of my crib and clutched

my small warmth, loud in his hands. When he shook
my head like a rattle, the silence he craved came sweet.

It lasted brief as breath underwater.

[Sheryl Clough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beauty and Addiction in the Blue Ridge Mountains
I had the pleasure of reading an advance review copy of Mary Ardery’s poetry collection, Level Watch. She relates her experiences as a wilderness guide for rehabilitation programs in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. As someone who has little experience with addiction and rehab, the poems raised questions for me: Why can’t they have spearmint gum? What is a level watch, anyway? Setting those aside, I concentrated on the startling imagery Ardery uses to portray the demons possessing her addicted clients. In “They Tell You You’ll Dream of the Dead,” heroin scars become feathers in heaven. In “Night Group,” a woman telling a story at the campfire disguises her rapist as a mountain lion: “He promised he wouldn’t bite / if she didn’t scream.” Ardery does not stint on poetic technique, utilizing simile, metaphor and alliteration in abundance. “You dream a row of ruptured femurs” rings like a bell in the ear in “Wilderness First Responder Training.” The prose poem “Relics” recalls Tim O’Brien’s famous “The Things They Carried,” causing this reader to consider the traumatic similarities of being addicted and being sent to war.
The poet does not shy away from brutal outcomes (the death of a client) or from her own history of alcohol abuse and the legacy left by an alcoholic father. “Does drinking always spread through generations?” she asks in ”Nantahala Wildfire.”
The poems here are objects of great beauty, and the book’s cover is spectacular: a watercolor painting overlying a contour map of the mountains. This collection of vivid poems is a valuable read for anyone dealing with addiction, going through rehabilitation or supporting someone in rehab, or indeed anyone who has ever considered the vise grip drugs and alcohol can hold on us. Highly recommended; available from June Road Press as of September 23, 2025.

Sheryl Clough, M.F.A.
Author of "Inhaling the Salish Sea: Poems from Whidbey Island"

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This debut poetry collection is a powerful statement about addiction, recovery, and a unique treatment option that takes the participants deep into the Appalachian mountains. This rugged, challenging treatment offers participants a means of strengthening their resolve to lead a sober lifestyle while also challenging, and improving, their physical fitness.
As a former mental health professional, I recognized many of the touchstones inherent in Ms. Ardery's text, from the tenuous hope we hold for our participants success, to the crushing self-blame that comes when we feel inadequate to meet the challenges posed by severe and persistent mental illnesses and addictions.
The author has a direct line that runs from her participants to her heart, and at times this line becomes clogged and there is a break, perhaps because of the strain of her own unresolved conflicts with drugs and alcohol, (Not uncommon in the field) but never to the detriment of the work. In fact, her brilliant honesty and self-doubt drew me in as a reader, leaving me to draw my own conclusions to her dilemmas, which is what all good poetry invites us to do.
The ruminations that result in some poems feeling repetitive are important to consider and not dismiss, as this is a common device poets employ to develop thoughts more fully.
I would highly recommend this book not only to people that love poetry, but also to those that don't usually read it, especially professionals in the field of addiction and recovery. This book is filled with the love notes you would never be able to write as a case note. It is important work.
* This book was an ARC. I have no other knowledge of this writer.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading Level Watch because I was so excited a friend from high school had done the thing and had published a poetry book. I finished reading Level Watch over the course of a few days (no small feat with a six month old at home) because it truly moved me and provoked me. Mary's handling of these really difficult experiences and the deep questions of pain and addiction are so necessary in today's world, and yet so difficult to look at in the eye, let alone with such poetry and grace and beauty. The visceral setting of the Blue Ridge mountains to bring the beauty and harshness of the natural world into stark contrast with prescriptions and injections and overdoses... it is just so expertly done, and yet so readable and accessible. I found myself rereading and thinking over and over about poems, how Mary has created a book with so many touch points to feel connected even if the reader (blissfully) has no personal experience with addiction or recovery. I highly highly recommend this beautiful deep book, and I thank Mary for helping me start rereading poetry books cover to cover again. I missed that!

[Anna Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeous collection of poems feels like Girl, Interrupted (but about addiction) set in the Appalachian wilderness. It is haunting, layered, and personal. Some poems provide flashbacks into the speaker's childhood, recovery groups in a childhood home catered with Oreos, lines of cars in the driveway blinking like Christmas lights. There is a Taco Bell meal in the basement of a church that leads to conversion. And there's the exploration of pain, how it is so bound up in a woman's understanding of the feminine experience. All of these poems are searing and spare, and the collection is propulsive -- I couldn't put it down.

[Mary Simmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes, a book comes along and, even on the first reading, you know it will never quite leave you. Level Watch is one such book. These poems are personal in a way that make them feel personal to the reader, too; this book truly reaches the universal through the specific. Here, loss, hope, connection, fear, awe, and love are captured as vividly as the Blue Ridge Mountains themselves. Make sure you have some time set aside when you sit down to read Level Watch–you will simply not be able to put it down once you’ve started. Ardery is a master storyteller, and you will lose yourself in these pages, these poems, these tales that speak of what it means to be human.

[Melissa Fraterrigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you finish a book and simply cannot do anything else but let the words settle in your bones. That was my experience with Mary Ardery's brilliant LEVEL WATCH. Evocative, fierce, attentive and insightful, this is a book that I will be returning to again and again. Most of these poems are narrative driven, detailing Ardery's experience as a wilderness guide for women in an addiction treatment program. In the hands of another writer, such a journey might feel heavy, Ardery's touch is light, and her words carry the miraculous weight of hope and beauty--of life itself. Read this book!!!

[Heather Sweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this beautiful collection of poetry, Mary Ardery shares her experiences as a wilderness guide for women in a substance-abuse treatment program. I could not put this book down. I also found myself re-reading several poems immediately after reading them the first time because there was always something new to discover. Ardery’s writing is sharp, smart, vulnerable and so vivid I felt like I was in the Blue Ridge Mountains right alongside her. Absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend LEVEL WATCH!

[Tiffany Graham Charkosky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and evocative. I fell in love with its images of mountains and trees and its questions of self discovery and family legacy.

LEVEL WATCH by Mary Ardery is the most stunning book I’ve held this year, with a watercolor cover, maps inside, and tender passages I know I’ll reread soon.

[Grace A · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not generally a poetry reader but found this book captivating. My favorite poems were Omen and Widowmaker. Have already re-read cover to cover!

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Start to finish - a moving, transportive read. Cannot recommend more highly!