Some poems from Indebted to Wind by LR Berger

LR Berger’s latest book came out almost two years ago, but reading it now is still as moving and pleasurable as it was in 2021. I’ve been going back to recent titles and posting poem pages with the consideration that people like reading poems right in the post, and with hope that it may encourage them to visit the previews on issuu.com/deerbrookeditions or go to the Website and order a copy.

And there is good reason to.

L.R. Berger’s work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, The PEN New England Discovery Award and The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.  She was Visiting Artist at The American Academy in Rome, and has been granted residencies at The MacDowell Colony, The Blue Mountain Center, Hedgebrook, Wellspring House and The Hermitage.  Her collection of poems, The Unexpected Aviary, received the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry.

Here are a couple of spreads from the book.

You can click on the spreads to view large, and use command + or – to adjust the size.

The wind in these eloquent, elegant, tensile poems is present as spirit, of course; and as spirit it can manifest as the longing or fate of the body (it expires), as intellectual momentum (it inspires), and as power for social justice (it aspires). In all these modes, L.R. Berger both controls the energy as form, and honors the charge of the moment through perception by brilliant perception, breath by mortal breath.

—Stephen Tapscott, author of From the Book of Changes, and more

Indebted to Wind book review

Indebted to Wind has a review in North of Oxford by John Zheng

Endorsements from the back cover

The wind in these eloquent, elegant, tensile poems is present as spirit, of course; as spirit it can manifest as the longing or fate of the body (it expires), as intellectual momentum (it inspires), as power for social justice (it aspires). In all these modes, L.R. Berger both controls the energy as form, and honors the charge of the moment through perception by brilliant perception, breath by mortal breath.

—Stephen Tapscott

In this beautiful new book, words are unusually alive and active in the poet’s capable hands. A whispered finale meaning finally, a riff on up, and an exploration of the letter P : these are among the linguistic players that address both personal loss and political realities, which L. R. Berger explores with searing honesty, emotional depth, and lyric grace. No precious word is wasted here; you will read carefully and gratefully, and want to read again.

—Martha Collins

About LR Berger

L.R. Berger’s work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, The PEN New England Discovery Award and The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.  She was Visiting Artist at The American Academy in Rome, and has been granted residencies at The MacDowell Colony, The Blue Mountain Center, Hedgebrook, Wellspring House and The Hermitage.  Her collection of poems, The Unexpected Aviary, received the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry.

L.R. Berger reading at Lily Poetry Salon February 27, 2022 at 2pm

L.R. Berger reading with Kathi Aguero at Lily Poetry Salon February 27, 2022 at 2pm

Lily Poetry Salon, a Massachusetts reading series celebrating poets and literary citizenship, welcomes Kathleen Aguero and L.R. Berger reading from their latest collections via zoom. Here is their Facebook event link

L.R. Berger’s work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, The PEN New England Discovery Award and The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Her collection of poems, The Unexpected Aviary, received the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. Berger will read from Indebted to Wind (Deerbrook Editions)

Kathleen Aguero’s latest book is World Happiness Index. Her other collections include After That, Investigations: The Mystery of the Girl Sleuth, Daughter Of, The Real Weather, and Thirsty Day . She teaches in the Solstice low-residency M.F.A. program and in Changing Lives through Literature, an alternative sentencing program.

About the author

Some words about and from L.R. Berger

L. R. Berger’s work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, The PEN New England Discovery Award, The American Academy in Rome, The MacDowell Colony, The Appalachia Poetry Prize, The Blue Mountain Center and Hedgebrook. Berger writes of her poems, “The world dares us to love it: that poignant, sturdy brand of love that can sometimes be wrestled out of the condition of our lives. These poems are driven by an ongoing necessity to take up this dare. They are both the means by which I wrestle and the hard-won outcome: a record of how I persisted, faltered or came to arrive at something approaching this love.”