How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons): Poetry

by Barbara Kingsolver

In this intimate collection, the beloved author of the The Poisonwood Bible and more than a dozen other New York Times bestsellers, winner or finalist for the Pulitzer and countless other prizes, now trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are smartly crafted, emotionally rich, and luminous. 

In her second poetry collection, Barbara Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with “how to” poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship and family, and making peace (or not) with death, in the many ways it finds us. Some poems reflect on the redemptive powers of art and poetry itself; others consider where everything begins.Closing the book are poems that celebrate natural wonders—birdsong and ghost-flowers, ruthless ants, clever shellfish, coral reefs, deadly deserts, and thousand-year-old beech trees—all speaking to the daring project of belonging to an untamed world beyond ourselves.

Altogether, these are poems about transcendence: finding breath and lightness in life and the everyday acts of living. It’s all terribly easy and, as the title suggests, not entirely possible. Or at least, it is never quite finished. 

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Adult, Nature, Book Club, Contemporary

1 pages, Audio CD

First published August 4, 2020

About the author

Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2011 and the National Humanities Medal. After winning for The Lacuna in 2010 and Demon Copperhead in 2023, Kingsolver became the first author to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice. Since 1993, each one of her book titles have been on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Kingsolver was raised in rural Kentucky, lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood, and she currently lives in Appalachia. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. In 2000, the politically progressive Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change".

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t read much poetry in a very long time, but when I became aware of this collection by Barbara Kingsolver, I thought that it might be a nice change. I’ve very much enjoyed Kingsolver’s writing over the years, having read a number of her novels, but I had no idea that she wrote poetry. I found it to be much more than just a change of pace. I found these poems to be inspiring, lovely, and relatable, humorous at times. Marriage, hope , nature , motherhood, death with moving tributes to her grandfather in “This is How They Come Back to Us”, and her great grandmother in “My Great-Grandmother’s Plate “ and a very sad one about her mother’s death, sharing personal and intimate details of their relationship, are among the themes reflected.

I loved the series of poems on a family trip to Italy with her mother in law . In “On the Piazza”, she brought me back to Piazza Navona, one of my favorite places in Rome, but also what it was like to be a tourist while trying to experience a place. I especially connected to “In Torricelli, Finding Her Mother’s House “ and “Into the Abruzzo”. “Here to remind me of graveyards and surprising sites of origin. A mountain that holds us to its secrets. These feral granite ranges gave the world children, the mother of my mother-in-law, her son, our family, and peonies.” I was brought back to the time I walked through the town where my grandparents were born.

Reflecting on her daughters and motherhood in “Creation Stories” and “Meadowview Elementary Spelling Bee “ were touching. “Insomniac Villanelle “ - on reading and writers who bear “The chore of blunting night’s tormented edges Austen, Byron, Cather, Dickens, Emerson... Now there’s birdsong, daylight on the ledges.” There were some that I loved more than others, but not one that I didn’t like . Reading these poems was a perfect way to spend an afternoon on an overcast day.

Thanks to Jenny, whose review ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) brought this to my attention.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Harper through Edelweiss.

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Here begins my life as no one’s bad daughter.’

I hadn’t realized that Barbara Kingsolver was a poet as well as a Pulitzer Prize winning and much beloved author. As I scanned across the poetry section in the library my eyes caught on her name and I just had to check it out. And I’m glad I did because Kingsolver’s How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons), the second collection by her, is quite the tender delight. Weaving humor and heartfelt observations into her verses that combine personal narrative with broader reflections on life, nature, and human connectivity, Kingsolver delivers a rather charming collection that, while occasionally dipping into cliche and perhaps still searching for a distinct poetic voice, reads like a warm embrace. How to Fly is blissfully approachable making it an excellent accompaniment to her novels for fans of the author as well as a soft and compassionate collection for those new to her. Confronting the desires and anxieties of the human heart, this is a lovely little collection.

How to Survive This

O misery. Imperfect
universe of days stretched out
ahead, the string of pearls
and drops of venom on the web,
losses of heart, of life
and limb, news of the worst:

Remind me again
the day will come
when I look back amazed
at the waste of sorry salt
when I had no more than this
to cry about.

Now I lay me down.
I’m not there yet.

Resilience in the face of adversity is the central theme championed within Kingsolver’s collection. Opening with a series of whimsical yet often somber ‘How To’ poems, Kingsolver examines ways we can best live life to seek out purpose and meaning, casting off the wearies and woes that weigh us down and embracing ourselves. As with her novels, the natural world is cherished with reminders to enjoy yet also protect it. While I quite enjoyed her poems about the importance of the natural world, there was a sense of her poems feeling almost too much like an attempt at being Mary Oliver and many of the ‘How To’ poems felt altogether too similar to works Oliver has done a bit better. Take, for instance:

Love Poem, With Birds

The wonder is that such an eye, that lets not
even the smallest sparrow fall from notice,
beholds me also. That I might walk the currents
of our days with red and golden feathers
in my hair, my plain tongue laced with music.
That we, the birds and I, may be text and
illumination in your book of common prayer.

It’s not a bad thing and Kingsolver certainly has a distinct and excellent voice in her novels whereas here sometimes it felt like she was telling herself “I am writing a poem” and the voice reflects a sense of trying instead of simply embodying. Still, it is heartfelt on every page. The collection starts to find a home in the second section, Pellegrinaggio, about the experiences of a family pilgrimage to Italy as the book moves into really contemplative territory. ‘All these parts of his life are / equal now, the end and the beginning’ she writes in This is How They Come Back to Us, a poem for her deceased grandfather in the collections third section, titled after the poem and filled with elegies for loved ones now gone. Concepts of resilience are always close at hand.Kingsolver moves into more abstract poetry on nature and destruction, such as poems on the burning of Notre Dame cathedral or the devastating destruction done to the Great Barrier Reef. Or there is Forests of Antarctica, a rather lovely standout in the collection on the resilience of trees surviving in new climates due to migration that ends as such:

when
the world breaks open, fall apart
with her entrails, fall with the stones or fly.
Let the crush of it make you into some
new thing not yourself. See how these trees
take the teat of the world and suckle it
drinking time, knowing it is perfect
with or without them. Lacking their religion,
you will have to make your own.

You are the world that stirs. This is the world that waits.

A tender and warm collection, How To shows Kingsolver is just as imaginative and heartfelt in poetic form as she is in her novels. While at times it feels a bit overly constructed and self-conscious, there is a kindness and empathy flowing from each page that is hard to not simply enjoy.

3.5/5

How to Do Absolutely Nothing

Rent a house near the beach, or a cabin
but: Do not take your walking shoes.
Don’t take any clothes you’d wear
anyplace anyone would see you.
Don’t take your rechargeables.
Take Scrabble if you have to,
but not a dictionary and no
pencils for keeping score.
Don’t take a cookbook
or anything to cook.
A fishing pole, ok
but not the line,
hook, sinker,
leave it all.
Find out
what’s
left.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry, lives lived, lessons learned. Some like letters, some shorter, all wonderful. How to be married, how to be divorced, have a child, even one on knitting. A short tour of Italy, when she takes her mother in law there to visit her childhood home.

There are two, however, that stood out for me. How to be hopeful. Much needed, for many besides myself, I believe. I adored this line, "Sometimes you have to stand on an incline where things look possible."

These last two lines in "The forests of Antarctica" gave me chills.

"You are the world that stirs.
This is the world that waits."

ARC from edelweiss.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know Barbara Kingsolver wrote poetry, but I really enjoyed this collection. I'd put it up there with Mary Oliver in thematic material and think the same readers would like both. (That's high praise, I love Mary Oliver!) - nature, aging, death & dying as part of life, wisdom etc.

My favorites (linking to them online if I can find them)
How to Drink Water When There is Wine
How to Have a Child
How to Survive This (published in the NYT during high pandemic numbers in NYC)
How to Do Absolutely Nothing
How to Be Married
My Mother's Last Forty Minutes
"...Here begins my life as no one's bad daughter..."
Forests of Antarctica
"...You are the world that stirs. This is the world that waits."

I had a copy from the publisher through Edelweiss. It comes out in September but I was worrying about my eARC expiring before I had a chance to review it so here we are.

[Jeannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many beautiful poems in this book, I had a hard time choosing a favorite. I don't want to take this one back to the library. I will have to get my own copy. 5 stars

Blow Me-
away. Like the globe of
dandelion haze on the stalk I put
in your hand the first time you stand
up by yourself in the grass.

down. Like a hurricane
shredding the roof I only want
to keep in one piece over your head-
strong adolescence.

over. Likely as not I am
already stepping aside, blinking
at your improvised inheritance,
feat beyond replication.

out. Like the candle
that lit your way into this dark house
ablaze now with your occupancy. Our bond,
the same as our breathing, out and
in.

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love any book of poems that Barbara Kinsgsolver writes. She is a poet who still knows what it is to be a poet, to say things in such a way that you think of little things in brand new ways, to use words as art and dance, to make you understand the nature of life with tiny observations that give meaning to the most insignificant things around us.

There were definitely poems and sections that I liked in this book better than others, but it's the sort of book that I'd like a physical copy of to dog-ear and underline and read again and again.

These are the sorts of poems you read to realize you're not alone in the universe and other people are living all the same heartbreaking, wonderful, terrible, mundane, awful, beautiful things you are. "Passing Death" was especially heartbreaking for me because it describes so well what is happening to my wonderful mother-in-law right now, whom we can't even visit because of covid-19.

For her children, this gradual dying
is like those tests at school that leave no one behind:
death mastered in small increments.
Last summer, they lost her laugh,
the surprise of a marshmallow sandwich,
jokes while she folded the laundry,
a sheet furled around the make-believe bride.
By then we knew she wouldn't see their weddings...

Topics range from friendship to aging to nature to love, arranged by chapters that each have their own style and general theme.

A great collection, with something for everyone (as long as you're willing to think a bit).

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

[Geoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I haven't read everything Kingsolver has written, a few of her novels are among my favorite books ever written. But this collection of her poetry, organized by general theme (lessons, a family trip to Italy, elegies) didn't do that much for me. The writing was beautiful but the poems and their themes just didn't hit for me. Maybe it was because they were organized by type and theme that what seemed interesting at first rapidly became stale?

**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Linden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read all of Kingsolver’s novels, so I thought I would try reading some of her poetry. Much of it reads more like what I’d call poetic prose. She groups the selections into seven sections, from “How to Fly” to “The Nature of Objects.” So much of poetry is personal, and it can strike a chord with someone, or not. Even though she's obviously a skilled writer, I was not one with whom this collection struck a chord. Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for this ARC.

[vicki honeyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Barbara Kingsolver's second collection of poetry. I carried with me and read in parks, in trees, on benches, in bed, on a little boat her first collection, published in 1992, "Another America: Otra America." I read it out loud for only myself to hear. At that point Ms. Kingsolver had published four books: two novels, "Animal Dreams" and "Bean Trees," a collection of short stories, and a book about the women of the 1983 Arizona Mine Strike. I fell in love with her writing. Now, dozens of years and bestsellers later, she has written her second poetry collection, in which she reflects on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. The collection opens with how-to poems that touch on everyday life such as marriage and divorce, shearing a sheep, doing absolutely nothing, and flying! In the middle are poems about making peace. She finishes the collection with poems honoring the natural world. As she has done throughout her accomplished writing career, Barbara Kingsolver has presented the reader with questions and answers that are ultimately about evolution and hope.

[Jenn]

A few months ago, a friend and I expressed a mutual desire to add a bit of daily poetry to our usual literary fare, perhaps progress to the point where we feel more comfortable with the meter and metaphorical phrasing. Sounded like a daunting task for an ignoramus like me, but I was game for the assignment. I took the liberty of divvying out the homework projects, assigning myself the “easy stuff” – female poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. Snickering, I gave said friend any and all poetry from the dawn of human language until 1900, from lands both native and foreign. (He has yet to submit his final assignment to me and risks scoring an “incomplete” in my class. Fake assignment. Fake class…and yet the shared poems and lesson planning brought delight to my weeks. Luckily for him, I’m an easygoing sort of headmistress, and I’ll accept late work.)

Best to admit up front that I’m a complete rookie with poetry. Looking for some familiar ground on which to start my journey, I chose a collection from Barbara Kingsolver as I’m generally a fan of her fiction and essays. I’ll also readily acknowledge that one morning poem sipped each day like breakfast tea is likely preferable to ingesting them all in one big gulp, but I did indeed read them all in one day. (A poetic sort of day – the wispy clouds were skipping leisurely across a bright azure sky, my lilacs and carnations were heady with a delightful aroma, and the trill of hummingbirds at the feeders made for excellent background music.)

I was surprised to find only one poem with a discernible rhyming structure; most poems were simply lyrical sentences with creative line and stanza breaks. Certainly easier for me that way, and yet I’m not sure I’m qualified to rate this work. I think that perhaps I need more exposure to other collections to create my own personal benchmark. Instead, I'll hand out awards, yearbook-style, to the worthiest submissions and mark passages that resonated with me the most:

Most Incongruous:
Burying Ground (for appreciation of life’s simple joys in a cemetery)

Most Reverent:
My Great-Grandmother’s Plate (for according respect to women in the home)

Most Heartbreaking:
My Mother’s Last Forty Minutes (for highlighting our indignities at death and acknowledging love despite hurtful family relationships)

Most Fun:
My Afternoon with The Postman (for a lively conversation about art criticism with the famous Van Gogh portrait)

Most Nostalgic:
Snow Day (for unexpected and exhilarating tobogganing)

Most Comprehensive:
Where It Begins (for lovely reflections on life, nature, family and friends in passages ostensibly about knitting)

*****
From How to Cure Sweet Potatoes:
Bear in mind also the ways that you were once
induced to last through the sermon, the meal,
the insufferable adult conversation, all the times
you wanted to be starchy but were made to be sweet.

*****
From Dancing with the Devil:
Advice for the Female Poet:
When the choice is speak now
or forever hold your peace,
remember how “peace” comes around
in time to feeling like this crocodile
you are trying to drown.

*****
From Cage of Heaven:
Do we not all have the same stones
lining the bottoms of our minds, the same
narrow plank of reason crossing the top
of that chasm, same funeral when it breaks
to send us plunging? I’ve had my days.

Weeks, even. When I could not bear to leave
the safety of my own trees, my choir of
Carolina wrens. I have what she had: fleets
of ships in our libraries to take us anywhere;
some goodly sort of god arranging his furniture
in our houses, that we might try out heaven;
and poetry’s clear pools where the lone swimmer
can feel against bare skin the ice of revelation.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

"How to Fly" is a collection of emotionally rich poetry that reminds us to appreciate the small things in life — the ones that, upon reflection, are actually everything.

These poems are meant to be savored. They invite reflection and encourage you to slow down and see the quiet beauty in the world around you.

They speak to self-love, gratitude, and the quiet power of noticing. There’s nothing radically new here — but that’s the point. It’s a gentle, powerful reminder of what really matters.

Moving. Heartfelt. Grounding.

3.5 stars

[Erin (roostercalls) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Tiptoe past the dogs of the apocalypse
asleep in the shade of your future.
Pay at the window. You’ll be surprised: you
can pass off hope like a bad check.
You still have time, that’s the thing.
To make it good.”
-“How to Be Hopeful,” Barbara Kingsolver
•
So often poetry without teeth and claws fails to hold my interest for the duration of an entire book. I tell myself this is because poems are meant to be savored like a single piece of extra-dark chocolate after supper; a whole bag at once would only ruin the treat.

The truth is probably more about a deficit of attention.

The poems in HOW TO FLY (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) are threaded through with gentle grace. There’s no blood-letting here—just a calming touch along your spine, the cool hand at your brow when you’re under the weather. And yet my attention never strayed, one to the next. Kingsolver had me under her spell in short verses as completely as she commands the pages of a novel.
•
Loosely themed sections of the book travel from a series of How To’s to a family pilgrimage to Italy to a section of heart-rending epitaphs to lost loved ones and beyond. Kingsolver’s observations are capacious and wise, and never too self-serious. As soon as she sketches the state of the world in stark lines that tighten the throat, she limns them with hope and makes you laugh.

And who in the world doesn’t need that right now? A little hope tinged with laughter; a lyrical hug as we trudge wearily into a new season with the same worries and woes on our backs.
•
Huge thanks to @harpercollins for the chance to review an early copy of this work. I highly recommend nabbing HOW TO FLY from your local library or independent bookstore today if your soul is feeling a little drained and needs a some filling up.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poetry collection encompasses a wide variety of subjects – the author’s family history, world travels, nature, relationships, friendship, death, literature, knitting, and much more. The poems are organized by theme. My primary poetry readings are the classics of the 19th century. I do not read contemporary poetry on a regular basis so I may not be the best judge of its quality. It was not a bad reading experience, but nothing really stood out for me.

[Judith Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of poetry by one of my favourite writers. I finished it today sitting on the rocks at the stunning beach of Tor Bay, on the Gower Coast of South Wales, after a restorative dip in the rumbustious waves of the incoming tide. I think Barbara Kingsolver would have enjoyed it!

There is much to savour in this book. I particularly enjoyed the Pelegrinaggio section, where the family accompanied the author’s 80 year old mother in law on a trip to see the Italy from which the latter’s parents emigrated before her birth to America.

I also loved the truly beautifully expressed elegies in the section So This is How They Come Back to Us, including My Grandmother’s Plate and Thank You Note for a Quilt.

The only poem I really couldn’t get on with was the prose poem Where It Begins. For me anyway, I think Barbara Kingsolver writes wonderful prose and poems, but this other form feels really contrived. Interesting, because in my own poetry group I am often told by one of my fellow poets that my story-telling poems might work better as prose poems! Perhaps that’s a hangover from all the blogs I’ve written!

Highly recommend How to Fly.

[Martha☀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stepping right out of my comfort zone, I read this poetry collection and I was enthralled. I recently read that poetry is where an author extends a hand halfway to you and it is up to you to reach out halfway to her for connection. So true.
I especially loved the poem Where It Begins Oh how that full circle view touched me.
Also the whole 2nd section, titled Pellegrinaggio shares a family's return to Italy to visit distant relations and be tourists. Every sense is awakened in this small collection. Incredible!

[Emily Kestrel]

DNF on page 73.
Normally I can read a collection of poems pretty quickly, even if I don’t especially care for them. But this book defeated me. I dreaded even picking it up.

I’m not going to rate it because they’re probably good poems; I just don’t like Kingsolver. I’ve tried her fiction, nonfiction and now poetry and...nope. Not for me. Except for THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, which I loved.

[Vicky Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love Beyond Anything I Will Ever Make of It." "The Things a Person Will Murder in Order to Name"

My doubled title of quotations from Kingsolver's book defines the dichotomy of her poetry. But, while her lines branch and fork in differing directions, sometimes even opposite paths; you always find yourself in the same place... just where she meant to take you. Barbara Kingsolver's lines have a quality that reminds me of Agatha Christie's mysteries and their puzzles. All the parts are leading somewhere, and fit into a whole that is often surprising.

If you've never read any of her other work, then you should. She reveals an inner wisdom through her words. This delightful work is full of heart and spirit that reaches down deep inside with some of the gut reactions it delivers. She writes about people, family, life, parents, children, places, and a bit of nature. She has led a particularly unique life, and it shows in her work.

This collection is a hardback First Edition published in 2020. I highly recommend Kingsolver's book for anyone who enjoys poetry.

[Sharyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Kingsolver has visions, knows and uses words like an alchemist. This collection of poetry soars from inner musings on the natural world to tracing and illuminating personal family history from roots in Italy to Africa and rural Kentucky.
The word images can be illuminating, startling, befuddling and astute.
As in her prize winning fiction and non-fiction works, the breadth and depth of her experience, knowledge and curiosity is an amazement.
It is not easygoing reading and at times you may push yourself to slog through lines and metaphors that leave you in the dark. Then, the next line will take your breath away. Stay with her for those times are worth it.

[Ned · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) on 02-09 Jan 2021



If I am honest, I do not give poetry its due. Like my taste in music, I need some kind of entrée, a relationship, to get me to the table. I realize my folly, once I get in there and begin to savor. Happenstance is a factor as well; in this case I was nearing the completion of this author’s monumental Poisonwood Bible. On a lark, whilst erranding, I dropped into the last commercial bookseller standing in my area, Barnes and Nobles, and sought out the autographed hardbacks. Here I found a lovely book with the author’s tidy signature affixed. I thought I would sneak this in at end of year to bolster numbers for the year in Goodreads, but I had already achieved my goal and was slightly ashamed of gaming the system. Unprompted, I confessed this to my adult children over the holidays, as we passed the general topic of our year in reading.



Poetry for me requires a clean palate, separation from noise and distractions, so the black font on creamy page can find purchase. The body and brain pain must be on the cool side, at least tolerable, but not because benumbed. A hardwood floor is helpful, and a gas fire (no tending) flickering in the hearth. Certainly, no intoxicants on board to blur the eyes, nor strong stimulant to tempt to skittering – a little caffeine is fine for focus. This is how I come to Kingsolver, and she sings to me this morning. My wife just arrived from errands, this chilly January Saturday morning, with pomp and circumstance, so wrapping up for now – the body bleats for its own amusement and moils in metabolic machinations. Laying my little gem of a book aside for now.



Past midway, now, page 74. I think poetry might be my thing, for the right person of course. Kingsolver’s mystique has me in thrall. If only I had more of the quiet winter mornings by the fire to focus, without the cacophony of pixelated words from the miniature computer never far from my person. Words fail me, when I need them, I can barely remember my own name, yet my journey through this life is always close.



Poetry suits my task for small, concentrated portions of flavor and meaning. Always I would prefer small bites of carefully blended morsels, to the voluminous feeding that is so carelessly shoved in our faces, demanding continuous mastication. My senses are set that way, through experience and the magic of random genetic assorting that apparently formed in the summer of 1959. But perception, or sense, is key. I have it some areas, but not in the olfactory one. By chance I’m on a steroid to slake the ravaging allergic tendencies (immunoglobulins of a type that self associate and fire off a cascade of histamine and myriad molecules that then turn my nasal passages into swollen, unreceptive, dense masses of tissue). Last night, as I laid me down to sleep, the night light of the moon in winter bleeding through the blinds, I smelled the faint odor of old blankets for the first time in months (years?). It took me back to evenings in that little upstairs room of my grandparent’s house, of a time when my beloved grandmother would pull a quilt from deep storage to cover her grandchild. It was a revery, and if only I could slow down this rollicking life I might find that peace that passeth understanding.



This morning I completed it – poetry demands keen attention, I had to slow down. And now this program is completing my thoughts for me (how annoying and frightening). Simple to sacrifice sanctity to this convenience, even as I type now. Or trick this program by writing so obtusively and originally that its predictions are usually wrong (doing better now). But I digress....



Likely I have 10 or 20 minutes on this Saturday morning by the gas-lit fire, on an overcase January morning, before the door leading to the garage bursts open and my grandson hits the hardwood floor and begins his enthusiastic and nervous jumping (oh, here he comes now....). There goes quietude and focus on the pain running down my leg, and enter joy and chaos as his innocence is celebrated.



On distraction, it is still mostly the order of my days.... a world of deadlines and extreme focus and productivity in the creation of future vials of clear liquid, delivering life-saving drugs, and this year, a vaccine for this special virus which has upset the known world. My Saturdays are my solitude, when I distill my nightly diversions (reading in bed) into digestable summaries to tuck away in slender volumes before delivery to my basement study, the holders of my mysteries.



Kingsolver I read back to back, the Poisonwood, now this, and it turned out to be a fine decision. Many years betwixt these widely divergent missives – the one grand and sweeping and voluminous – and this one tight, spare and of pure essense. She reminds me that poetry is delightful, if we take the care to tune our ear, and so personal. I feel I know this lady, whom I’ll never meet of course, through her work. And it is a relationship worth having, her talent is refined but, mostly, her spirit is seeking and pure. We have some kinship, both spending time in the blue grass of Kentucky and both arising from severely traumatizing religious training (me thinks). I doubt either of us regret it, since emergence from the dark cellar early in life makes the whole world a wonder today. Freedom is always relished, the dark past never that far behind.



I’m not going to quote the 3 sections I marked with pencil, as is my cumbersome wont, but I will say that this slim volume of poetry enriched me and whetted my appetite for poetry (again), and not only the crude ravings of that sad misnthrope (Henry Chinaski) who can be read with pleasure in altered states. Kingsolver goes deep, gets microscopic and then, intergalactic, within a sentence or two. She connects we humans together, reminds us of what matters, and interlaced our dominion with the natural world of plants, animals and the weather than randomly swarms our globe. Now I place my beautifully autographed volume away, and return to the hot mess of chaos on our news, as our democracy absorbs the slings and arrows of human hubris and re-sorts itself in un-imaginable and un-original ways of nature. Must it be broken now that it has evolved to an unhealthy state? I hope not, I want to return to my yard and loved ones, and celebrate those lives. As the author just taught me.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. The simplicity of much of the work is gradually disarming. Some of the poems are deeply intimate, others are ordinary, and a few stand above the rest. I was most moved by "How to be Hopeful," "Dancing with the Devil: Advice for the Female Poet," and "The Nature of Objects."

Your mileage may vary.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

It baffles me what Kingsolver can do with words. There were a few poems that rendered me speechless. I wasn’t crazy about all of the sections, but this collection absolutely lovely.

[Ben Donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite part was when she took 1/5 of the book to get off super boomer takes about international travel

[Rachel Spacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was on my night stand for almost a full year. but i am convinced that i needed this specifically dreary sad winter to read it and finish it. and now i don’t think i will ever spend a winter not reading poems out of this collection.

[Chrystopher’s Archive · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third time I’ve seen out the year with a small book of poetry, and the overall contemplative, hard scrabble but hopeful tone of Kingsolver’s How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) could have been made to order.

Standouts were How to Survive This, How to Be Hopeful, Thief, and Where it Begins.

Now I lay me down.
I’m not there yet.

[Sabina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audiobook. I enjoyed most of the poems and it has inspired me to connect more with nature and appreciate the little things.

[Mariella Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings on this collection. Technically, this collection was beautiful. I can feel the crisp swirl of the words and their styles as I read. It's obvious, the care with which each word and image was chosen. However, I found myself wanting to skip through a lot of the poems because they weren't really "landing" for me. My favorite part of the collection was the last section about places that Kingsolver had visited. There's a poem at the very end of the collection, "Forests of Antarctica," that was my favorite. I think there are probably a lot of people who would love this collection. And maybe on another day or in another time in life, I would appreciate it more as well. Right now, it's just not "landing" for me, so I feel rather ambivalent toward it for the most part. Which is sad because Kingsolver truly is a lovely author. Perhaps just not the author or collection for me. Do with that what you will.

[Bonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Fly is a wonderful volume of poetry from Barbara Kingsolver. Don't like one poem? Just keep reading and you're sure to find one (or more) poems that speak to you. They range from the humorous "How to Knit a Sweater" to the poignant "How to have a Child" to my favorite "My Mother's Last Forty Minutes". Kingsolver's language is beautiful, and I found almost all of these poems accessible and readable. Poetry can provide solace, understanding, therapy, empathy, and ways to see the big picture along with the tiniest detail. How to Fly gave me all of that and more.

[Roberta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have heard great things about this author and have two of her books on my “to read” list this year. Unfortunately, I was not a fan of her poetry but have high hopes for her other books!

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this 2020 collection, novelist Barbara Kingsolver demonstrates her poetry chops—which are considerable. The poems are presented in seven sections, including one made up entirely of “how to” poems and another focused on a family trip to Italy to get in touch with a grandmother’s roots. However, I’d say the overarching theme of the book is connectedness—with the people around us, with the work of our hands and bodies, and with the natural world. This theme comes through most clearly in the prose poem “Where It Begins,” which was my favorite. It’s just deft in its execution. Kingsolver’s precision of language and depth of knowledge and experience really shine in this one…and these qualities had already been shining pretty bright for eighty pages before I arrived at this gem.

My engagement level did sag a little in the middle, but I thought the book finished on a high note. It hardly seems fair that a gifted storyteller like Kingsolver should be such a strong poet, but it’s hard to complain when she’s such a delight in both genres. I will say, I was blown away by how much Kingsolver seems to know about quilting, knitting, cooking, farm work, trees, flowers, bivalves, coral reefs…you name it. That breadth of knowledge empowers her to make some very cool connections in her poetry.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read each of these poems, I felt like Barbara Kingsolver was sitting next to me, reading them to me. I could hear her voice so clearly in each poem. If I had to describe the poems in five words, I would say - simple, beautiful, sensual, thoughtful, and stunning.

My favorite poems are "How to Have a Child" and "How to Knit a Sweater (A Realist's Prayer)." I loved every poem from Chapter or Section 2, Pellegrinaggio. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be "XII. Lemon-Orchard Blue" (see the excerpt below). I also loved the chapter on knitting. How she brought everything full circle was incredibly thoughtful.

My favorite lines from "XII. Lemon-Orchard Blue" are provided below for reference. The last line takes my breath away. (I don't know why, but it does.) To see beauty in a moment, to be able to capture it and share it with others so we transported back to that one moment is a true gift:

"Others wait behind them: the blue,
for instance, that was always here
stretched tight as a laundered sheet
above the orchard where a point-eared dog
stalks his lizard and the lemon trees
bend their arms, whitewashed to the elbow,
pushing flat bouquets of leaves
against heaven, the wheeling swallows,
and one season's ration of cloud."

This is definitely a read-again book. Maybe I will have different favorites next time, depending on how I feel.