
Refugia
Poems
Kyce Bello(Author)
University of Nevada Press
Published on 30. September 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
104 pages
978-1-948908-34-4 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the inaugural Interim 2018 Test Site Poetry Series Prize, Refugia is a bright and hopeful voice in the current conversation about climate change. Kyce Bello's stunning debut ponders what it means to inhabit a particular place at a time of enormous disruption, witnessing a beloved landscape as it gives way to, as Bello writes, "something other and unknown." These poems explore the author's home ground in Northern New Mexico and carefully observe nature's seasons in parallel with personal cycles of renewal and loss. The vivid and engaging poetry touches upon history, inheritance, dry rivers, mountains, and most of all, trees-be they Western conifer forests succumbing to climate change or family trees reaching simultaneously into the past and future. In doing so, Bello creates a connection between generations that underscores our most critical tool for survival: imagination.
Ultimately a dedication of resilience, Refugia creates a terrain of the imagination that is, like ecological terrain, grounded in image and yet many-layered and unresolved. This poetry is a listening that writes us back into an ecological language of place that is crucial to our survival in this time of environmental crisis.
Ultimately a dedication of resilience, Refugia creates a terrain of the imagination that is, like ecological terrain, grounded in image and yet many-layered and unresolved. This poetry is a listening that writes us back into an ecological language of place that is crucial to our survival in this time of environmental crisis.
Reviews / Votes
Kyce Bello elegantly braids together a focus on daily concerns-with an emphasis on family dynamics, particularly motherhood-with environmental concerns, as she grapples with the gifts and burdens of living in the Anthropocene... Bello's ability to hold joy and despair in the heart at once is remarkable; her concern for drought, for lost conifers, for the world her children will inhabit and inherit shines in these poems." - Amie Whittemore, author of Glass Harvest"Kyce Bello's haunting Refugia is both homage and lament for the Earth we share. Kinder than Robinson Jeffers, Bello extends her sympathy also to the transience of human existence wherein we are all, ultimately, refugees. The equanimity of Bello's vision is direly needed in the ongoing environmental crises of our world. I'm thankful to find a poet in the 21st century with such compassion." - Claudia Keelan, Barrick Distinguished Scholar at UNLV
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Reno
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
136 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-948908-34-4 (9781948908344)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Kyce Bello's poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Boston Review, About Place Journal, Anomaly Literary Journal, The Raven Chronicles, Taos Journal of Poetry, and Sonora Review. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Content
Part One:
Refugia (1)
Dear Future Child
The Ashram at Leigh Mill Road
Guide to Flowering Plants
The Trouble with Belief
Refugia (2)
The Tree Coroners
Message in a Bottle from the Sea of Cortez
Grail Story
Phrases in the Original Unspoken
Brief Guide to Epigenetic Memory with Burning Bosque
Refugia (3)
Paper Trail
Equinox
Grass Widow
In the Air Before Easer
Part Two:
Portrait of the Homemaker at Eighteen
I Wear Long Skirts for My Own Unwary Pleasure,
Refugia (4)
Notes to Future Botanists in Search of Conifers
The Speaker Reconciles with Spring
For the Record
Solar Pinholes
Gazing on the Mid-Morning in an Expression of Solidarity
Refugia (5)
Crossing Elwood Pass
The Washerwoman Maps Her Body Before Death
The Carp Pond
Dowsing
Refugia (6)
Field Notes
Part Three:
Rinconada
Summer Ends With Ringing
Landscape with River Restored to its Historic Channel After 100 Years
Refugia (7)
Fall Reckoning
When We Gathered to Stock up On Light
Cusp with Various Visitations
Our Names Unfurl Across Winter
Refugia (8)
Further Phrases in the Original Unspoken
Omega
Archipelago of Ancestral Bodies and Unnamed Landmarks of the Present
Refugia (9)
Waveform
Origin of the Apple
Right of First Refugium
Acknowledgements
Notes
Refugia (1)
Dear Future Child
The Ashram at Leigh Mill Road
Guide to Flowering Plants
The Trouble with Belief
Refugia (2)
The Tree Coroners
Message in a Bottle from the Sea of Cortez
Grail Story
Phrases in the Original Unspoken
Brief Guide to Epigenetic Memory with Burning Bosque
Refugia (3)
Paper Trail
Equinox
Grass Widow
In the Air Before Easer
Part Two:
Portrait of the Homemaker at Eighteen
I Wear Long Skirts for My Own Unwary Pleasure,
Refugia (4)
Notes to Future Botanists in Search of Conifers
The Speaker Reconciles with Spring
For the Record
Solar Pinholes
Gazing on the Mid-Morning in an Expression of Solidarity
Refugia (5)
Crossing Elwood Pass
The Washerwoman Maps Her Body Before Death
The Carp Pond
Dowsing
Refugia (6)
Field Notes
Part Three:
Rinconada
Summer Ends With Ringing
Landscape with River Restored to its Historic Channel After 100 Years
Refugia (7)
Fall Reckoning
When We Gathered to Stock up On Light
Cusp with Various Visitations
Our Names Unfurl Across Winter
Refugia (8)
Further Phrases in the Original Unspoken
Omega
Archipelago of Ancestral Bodies and Unnamed Landmarks of the Present
Refugia (9)
Waveform
Origin of the Apple
Right of First Refugium
Acknowledgements
Notes