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Salt Lick Prayer
Salt Lick Prayer is a collection of poems exploring the complexities and contradictions of family history, spiritual tradition, and connection with the natural world. The rural landscape is a constant presence through which the author examines familial relationships and seeks the balance between reverence and reservation.
- GenresPoetry
70 pages, Paperback
Published January 6, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 3, 2017
This profoundly beautiful collection captures the rural beauty of the author’s home state of Kentucky, and her love of the kind of life one sees there is undeniable. Her poetry conjures up images of hot, steamy summer days and lazy, moonlit nights rife with crickets, fireflies, pastures and cornfields.
In The Morning after the Haying”, she says “I don’t know why I am in love with this land” yet her beautiful poetry is testament enough that she is. It’s part and parcel of who she is, and that is crystal clear to the reader, even though she wonders “so what is it that I feel when a peppered surge of starlings swarm the neighboring field, rising and holding for a moment as the humid thrust of sunrise breaks the horizon with its hot fingertip of devotion?” She is equally devoted to having her reader understand her connection to it.
Each piece is a story unto itself, with all of them fitting together to form an exquisite mosaic of pastoral beauty.
Many of the pieces, such as Laura May, The Listing and Homestead are more prosaic in nature, giving the reader an intimate glimpse into lives of people who were meaningful to her, and she effortlessly conveys that meaning to her reader. Even her prose has a lyrical quality to it.
The poet is incredibly gifted in creating unexpected metaphors, such as recalling how the crows “shrouded every tree, how the sky for an instant, became a single, feathered heartbeat” and how “Sunset comes down thick, wavy as molasses in the heat” in Crows.
She continues the same technique in Summer Solstice where she has “waited all day for God to flash His bright teeth like light sparking on a chipped lure just above the minnowed surface of a pond…” and as she waits, she only witnesses “the same small tragedy of sunset, the same stars coughing up broken beams…the same moths launching themselves at the moon’s shadowed crust”, but in the end, realizes that she has also “grown ripe in my skin” and wonders “What stem holds me fast to this earth?” In this way, the reader understands how the poet aligns herself so perfectly with the natural world around her.
In Flood Warning, she shows us again that her physical being is inexorably tied to the land she loves so much when she describes how “in this downpour, each hurled drop of rain a horsefly sting atop my shoulders, my sodden hair a pale whip gnashing my cheekbones and back. Blind or bind me in a blistered skein of light, wrench me skyward into the bitter, vexed whirl.”
There is poetry, and then there is poetry like this. Lesley Brower’s poetry transcends the average and transports the reader directly into the midst of what the poet holds so dear. It becomes so palpable to the reader that he or she cannot remain a passive observer, but can truly experience the poems in a multi-sensory way. This is truly a rare and exceptional opportunity for any lover of the poetic form
In The Morning after the Haying”, she says “I don’t know why I am in love with this land” yet her beautiful poetry is testament enough that she is. It’s part and parcel of who she is, and that is crystal clear to the reader, even though she wonders “so what is it that I feel when a peppered surge of starlings swarm the neighboring field, rising and holding for a moment as the humid thrust of sunrise breaks the horizon with its hot fingertip of devotion?” She is equally devoted to having her reader understand her connection to it.
Each piece is a story unto itself, with all of them fitting together to form an exquisite mosaic of pastoral beauty.
Many of the pieces, such as Laura May, The Listing and Homestead are more prosaic in nature, giving the reader an intimate glimpse into lives of people who were meaningful to her, and she effortlessly conveys that meaning to her reader. Even her prose has a lyrical quality to it.
The poet is incredibly gifted in creating unexpected metaphors, such as recalling how the crows “shrouded every tree, how the sky for an instant, became a single, feathered heartbeat” and how “Sunset comes down thick, wavy as molasses in the heat” in Crows.
She continues the same technique in Summer Solstice where she has “waited all day for God to flash His bright teeth like light sparking on a chipped lure just above the minnowed surface of a pond…” and as she waits, she only witnesses “the same small tragedy of sunset, the same stars coughing up broken beams…the same moths launching themselves at the moon’s shadowed crust”, but in the end, realizes that she has also “grown ripe in my skin” and wonders “What stem holds me fast to this earth?” In this way, the reader understands how the poet aligns herself so perfectly with the natural world around her.
In Flood Warning, she shows us again that her physical being is inexorably tied to the land she loves so much when she describes how “in this downpour, each hurled drop of rain a horsefly sting atop my shoulders, my sodden hair a pale whip gnashing my cheekbones and back. Blind or bind me in a blistered skein of light, wrench me skyward into the bitter, vexed whirl.”
There is poetry, and then there is poetry like this. Lesley Brower’s poetry transcends the average and transports the reader directly into the midst of what the poet holds so dear. It becomes so palpable to the reader that he or she cannot remain a passive observer, but can truly experience the poems in a multi-sensory way. This is truly a rare and exceptional opportunity for any lover of the poetic form
November 18, 2017
Damn, this is good.
February 16, 2025
Beautiful poetic sketches of south central U.S. - land and culture in personal prose. Lesley Brower paints Western Kentucky and the Ohio River region with words.
January 16, 2017
A review of Salt Lick Prayer, a collection of poems by Lesley Brower
It is almost “Some Small Thievery” on the part of this reader to get to see “the mud-dull back of a snapping turtle/ easing through clay at the river’s edge” through the vibrantly visual words of Lesley Brower as she takes on a field trip through the Kentucky hills in her scenic, and delightfully metaphorical book of poems titled Salt Lick Prayer.
From awakenings of nature through choruses in a country church on Sundays, we experience both the landscape itself, and the feel of growing up in this southern Midwest state. Her words are strong enough “to carry past something/ other than flotsam/of overhanging trees” with overhanging themes of closeness and importance of family, to love of heritage and just being who we are.
We observe the crows “a murder of them” with more focus and clarity as they “hustle/ of slate wing and hooked toes.” As we quickly become hooked on the words that “rain-churn” through these poems. And as readers, we become (with this poet) “a single, feathered heartbeat.”
In one poem she speaks of the mosquitoes that “start in on us” and how “we slap at our ankles, scratch the quick welts/ until they bleed.” And as we continue to read through this book we see a supple heart that bleeds for her family, her fellow man and for that “shuddering space/ between what is taken/ and what is left behind.” Lesley’s empathy extends to those who are subjects of her words and her affections, and that is quite an extended family.
She expresses the hope that the reader will “press your ear to the ground/ and hear the marble-roll growl of something ancient giving birth” showing the value she places on those who came before her and the heritage surrounding them, and also how nature keeps its cycle alive by constant re-birth.
In “When It Comes Down to It” she explicates the strength constantly shown by country women, who all at once look pretty but have the knuckles to prove they work as hard and as long as any man. And how on Sundays at the church, “When it comes down to it, I’m part of the folk who’ve seen the blaze of God.”
Very impressive how this poet gives us a collage of topics in the same breath. There is a spiritual undertone to many of her writes, and yet a plain old country shuffle to her beautiful word dances. She shows us soft and tough within the lines as we get the “Twitch of wind of flame, then a cottonmouth hiss of heat in the dark/ our barn gone bright with that timeless hunger,” the one she gives us to read and re-read her words, to crawl up into that hayloft and become privy to secrets of the life of a country poet who says “Lord, often I desire to be as shameless as a cow, particularly the unabashed manner/ in which they gyrate their tongues/ lolling the slick muscle past ryegrass/ and millet-stained teeth in ardent bray.”
She says “Dare I speak of the desire to press/ my own bud-mantled tongue to all manner/ of things discouraged? Once, I flattened / my mouth against the rusted pane/ of a screen door until the hatched weave/bequeathed its coppery marinade.”
There is a tasty marinade in this book of poetry and it would behoove the reader to use our eyes as tongues and traverse the morsels delivered to us in Lesley Brower’s wonderful first book of poetry.
jacob erin-cilberto (author of Rewrites and Second Chances)
It is almost “Some Small Thievery” on the part of this reader to get to see “the mud-dull back of a snapping turtle/ easing through clay at the river’s edge” through the vibrantly visual words of Lesley Brower as she takes on a field trip through the Kentucky hills in her scenic, and delightfully metaphorical book of poems titled Salt Lick Prayer.
From awakenings of nature through choruses in a country church on Sundays, we experience both the landscape itself, and the feel of growing up in this southern Midwest state. Her words are strong enough “to carry past something/ other than flotsam/of overhanging trees” with overhanging themes of closeness and importance of family, to love of heritage and just being who we are.
We observe the crows “a murder of them” with more focus and clarity as they “hustle/ of slate wing and hooked toes.” As we quickly become hooked on the words that “rain-churn” through these poems. And as readers, we become (with this poet) “a single, feathered heartbeat.”
In one poem she speaks of the mosquitoes that “start in on us” and how “we slap at our ankles, scratch the quick welts/ until they bleed.” And as we continue to read through this book we see a supple heart that bleeds for her family, her fellow man and for that “shuddering space/ between what is taken/ and what is left behind.” Lesley’s empathy extends to those who are subjects of her words and her affections, and that is quite an extended family.
She expresses the hope that the reader will “press your ear to the ground/ and hear the marble-roll growl of something ancient giving birth” showing the value she places on those who came before her and the heritage surrounding them, and also how nature keeps its cycle alive by constant re-birth.
In “When It Comes Down to It” she explicates the strength constantly shown by country women, who all at once look pretty but have the knuckles to prove they work as hard and as long as any man. And how on Sundays at the church, “When it comes down to it, I’m part of the folk who’ve seen the blaze of God.”
Very impressive how this poet gives us a collage of topics in the same breath. There is a spiritual undertone to many of her writes, and yet a plain old country shuffle to her beautiful word dances. She shows us soft and tough within the lines as we get the “Twitch of wind of flame, then a cottonmouth hiss of heat in the dark/ our barn gone bright with that timeless hunger,” the one she gives us to read and re-read her words, to crawl up into that hayloft and become privy to secrets of the life of a country poet who says “Lord, often I desire to be as shameless as a cow, particularly the unabashed manner/ in which they gyrate their tongues/ lolling the slick muscle past ryegrass/ and millet-stained teeth in ardent bray.”
She says “Dare I speak of the desire to press/ my own bud-mantled tongue to all manner/ of things discouraged? Once, I flattened / my mouth against the rusted pane/ of a screen door until the hatched weave/bequeathed its coppery marinade.”
There is a tasty marinade in this book of poetry and it would behoove the reader to use our eyes as tongues and traverse the morsels delivered to us in Lesley Brower’s wonderful first book of poetry.
jacob erin-cilberto (author of Rewrites and Second Chances)
January 3, 2026
This is a book I own currently and just had to have. Everything about is is astounding and so raw and beautiful. I would say it’s likely not for people who don’t like metaphor and imagery but I mean it is poetry so like…..
I keep finding myself gravitating towards it in my grief and it feels understanding when nothing else has.
I keep finding myself gravitating towards it in my grief and it feels understanding when nothing else has.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews