Back on Earth
My ninth collection, Back on Earth, is coming out in January, 2027, thanks to Cornerstone Press. The four sections of this book altogether speak to how we may more fully reinhabit our time and place, bodies and communities. See some of the poems at:
Thanks to Cornerstone Press for bringing out this book and to Dave Leiker for his gorgeous photo.
Pre-order your signed copy now and save shipping fees
(to be sent to you in January, 2027) by clicking here.
Recommendations
"Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s latest collection of poems is full of questions and gentle commandments teaching us how to stay in love with the impossible now. Love is always serving as a diplomat between the heart and the world, guiding us back from our hurts to our healing, from our sorrows to our wonder. “You want the news? Step outside” these poems say, helping us stay awake in our lives and all our new beginnings. These poems keep reminding us that there is something sacred in the daily, in the food and landscapes and time-tested loves that help us listen for the futures that are coming for us. The hope in this book carried me back to myself."
– Traci Brimhall, Kansas Poet Laureate 2023-2026 and author of Love Prodigal
"Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s full-throated, enormous-hearted, solid belief in the power of the right words to help us through the dark days of “the Impossible Now” is just exactly what we all need. She skillfully weaves healing spells out of the detritus and humdrum of our daily lives—cabinet hinges, washing machines, old cats, sagging wood floors—and springs them open on us with faith, with hope, and with love. Her words are wise, generous, important, and true. Read and cherish this book, friends. It will help to bring us safely through."
– Sidney Wade, author of eight collections of poetry, including the most recent Deep Gossip, New & Selected Poems
"In Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s Back on Earth: Poetry for the Impossible Now, every poem is an offering from a wise heart. These balms for uncertain times—“Nothing is pinned down, / even death”—teach readers to appreciate the ordinary: clementine peels, catalpa leaves, moth wings, safety pins. I found myself eager to jot down gems that transformed my perspective, such as the description of September as “A broken accordion of a month, / it plays nothing according to plan.” By grounding us in the senses, summoning air, fire, water, earth, and spirit, Mirriam-Goldberg invites us to live more present and authentically in our relationships."
~ Christine Stewart-Nuñez, author of The Poet and the Architect
"A troubadour of hope and chronicler of joy, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg offers lyrical instructions for the witnesses and survivors of our time in poems that sing with the brio of resilience. These magical spells and incantations serve as time’s measuring stick of a life prepared for, built, loved, lost, and accepted for whatever arrives in the present. 'The seeds have seen it all without having/to grow eyes,' the poet reminds us. Naming the unseen carries her from despair to trust, even toward a brave transcendence: 'what I hope will be the last juice on my lips/ at the cusp of death, plums knowing things/beyond what we could taste of this world,' she writes. Prepare for surprise, this poet delivers.
– Catherine Anderson, author of Afloat
"Come tango with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg in these poems that require partners to complete their elegant steps. This master poet leads readers through rhythms, sashays, and revelations. “Light turns seeds to swallows/swallows to wind to breath,” she writes in the poem “We Live in Light.” This is an embodied world, where connections and seasonal cycles take tangible form and never leave out spirit.
– Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007-09 and author of House of Grace, House of Blood
"Caryn Miriam-Goldberg’s latest poetry collection, Back on Earth asks, “What does it mean to look at the world?” There is a quiet fearlessness in Caryn’s response, a belief in our belonging, in our being part of, this world. Early on, she tells us, “You’ve never been actually lost,” that “Even the air can’t help / but sing its way home.” Despite the tragedies we encounter—cancer, the pandemic, death—we are reassured that “the pain will ebb to a refrigerator hum.” Caryn Miriam-Goldberg writes supremely conscious of the most important questions a poet can ask: “What are you writing to your life? / What is your life writing back?” Back on Earth beautifully chronicles that correspondence.
– William Sheldon, author of When I Go West: New and Selected Poems
"Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s Back on Earth was the book I needed right now. I try to speak only for myself, but I actually think it’s the book you need right now, too. All of us heartsick over the state of the world could use the beautiful and necessary reminders contained here. Mirriam-Goldberg does not pretend tragedy away. She writes about losing loved ones, about learning a terrible diagnosis, about the whole world at war. Her fierce love of the world is hard-earned, exhilarating, instructive. Every poem in this book is also a prayer."
– Melissa Fite Johnson, author of Midlife Abecedarian
"Back on Earth by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg casts a luminous glow on humble, everyday experiences to explore what it means to be human in uncertain times. Through the imperative voice and acts of inquiry, prayer, and exaltation, Mirriam-Goldberg navigates the tactile world....with the interiority of worry, love, awe, and worship to contemplate such metaphysical equations as the sum of naps subtracted 'from the surges of the washing machine.' As stealthy as a kayak that glides forth "through healing waters' to mend what ails the soul, these attentive, compassionate, and gently surreal poems are an invitation to slow down and inhabit the present moment more fully, to remember that each day remains an opening."
– Lisa Hase-Jackson, author of Insomnia in Another Town
"Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s collection, Back on Earth, is a love letter to the earth, and each person’s existence in it. Mirriam-Goldbert insists on taking in the marvel of everything around us, from the thunder, to hearing the first bird ringing in the news of today, to “marveling over the lack or abundance of snow or incompetence.” This collection is an ode to marveling—noticing all the small things, and pausing to notice the beauty already here, in the Impossible Now. This collection honors versions of the self that still exist somewhere in time, while weaving in the lives, loves, and children that have grown and lead their own lives, and still call home.
– Tyler Hurula, author of Too Pretty for Plain Coffee
