About the Book
In When I Go West, William Sheldon compiles nearly twenty-five years of poetic reflection into one august volume. These poems present snapshots of a life well-lived-working in one's garden, wandering through the woods, admiring the gift of an "orange-pink sky"-guiding readers to appreciate the simple joys and quiet beauty of life and reminding us how we are part of the same cycles as all of the natural world: birth, growth, and eventual decay. To Sheldon, death is not something to be feared, but rather a natural and necessary part of life. Ashes and compost will feed the next year's crops, and "purpose is assured only in the ground."
In When I Go West, William Sheldon compiles nearly twenty-five years of poetic reflection into one august volume. These poems present snapshots of a life well-lived-working in one's garden, wandering through the woods, admiring the gift of an "orange-pink sky"-guiding readers to appreciate the simple joys and quiet beauty of life and reminding us how we are part of the same cycles as all of the natural world: birth, growth, and eventual decay. To Sheldon, death is not something to be feared, but rather a natural and necessary part of life. Ashes and compost will feed the next year's crops, and "purpose is assured only in the ground."
About the Author :
William Sheldon lives in Hutchinson, Kansas. He is the author of three other books of poetry, Retrieving Old Bones(Woodley Press, 2002), Rain Comes Riding (Mammoth Publications, 2011), Deadman (Spartan Press, 2021), as well as a chapbook, Into Distant Grass (Oil Hill Press, 2009). He plays bass for the bands The Excuses and Cow Creek Blues.
Review :
William Sheldon's When I Go West: New and Selected Poems invites us right in with "The world says hello and makes it promise," then makes good on that promise. With keen observation of the life force in motion, Sheldon shows us how to hone our own awareness of the tiny and not-so-tiny stories roaring, flying, or rising all around us, from fingernail moons to a better heaven to " . . . a sky I love each time I see it, no matter/ its form." This whole book is imbued with the attention such love summons for the here and now. "'I love this world, '" he writes in "Yes, I Said Perfect," reminding us of the realest news, as free and available as our breath and the wind. This collection of his considerably vivid, jaunty, surprising, and honest poems is full of lanterns, maps, gardens, and river ways that help us see not just the world, but the promise that "There is only love / and its absence."
-Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Poet Laureate of Kansas 2009-13, The Magic Eye: A Story of Saving a Life and a Place in the Age of Anxiety
When I Go West is a beautiful collection of poems that sees life's daily promise for small beauties. Sheldon is definitely a writer of place and renders the Kansas landscape with precision, but the pleasures of a yard are made universal. Sheldon distills images we see most days, but he makes us stop glancing at the world and really look-at every tender morning, at every bird feeder, at every ripening tomato. These poems remind me of the awe that resides in quiet moments is a primer on how to love this world.
-Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas 2023-2026, Love Prodigal
William Sheldon has secrets to share, if you'll stop and hear his gentle voice echo across the plains. It's far from a hard sell. In fact, there's an easy welcome waiting, as if he asked you to spend the day with him, discovering all he knows about the natural world and each wonder he finds there. In this splendid collection, When I Go West: New and Selected Poems, the poet cradles us under his wing and takes flight, revealing what exists below-a teeming landscape of heartbreak and beauty.
-Bart Edelman, This Body Is Never at Rest, New and Selected Poems 1993-2023
