Review: Leaning Toward Light

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: Tess Taylor 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 29 August 2023

Leaning Toward Light by Tess Taylor is a beautiful anthology and garden book. Readers are introduced to poets overlooked for their attention to the worlds of planting, tending, and nurturing our place in nature. I found this to be a beautiful tribute to Mother Nature in a world slowly filling with “paved paradises” and their encroaching behaviours. This collection pays homage to those who nourish the Earth and find nourishment in return.

This book struck an emotional chord with me, as my late father and I enjoyed spending time in the garden together. The writers and poets pen the hardships and truths of life and how gardening can help them to be conveyed and understood. If you like gardens or nature, this is one to add to your poetry collection. I appreciated Taylor’s efforts to provide a mixture of traditional voices (mainly white males) and contemporary BIPOC voices.

I enjoyed how the collection is divisible by season. Each features a beautiful introduction and a recipe that begs to be tasted. Leaning Toward Light is a book I will be purchasing upon release to add to my nature and garden book collection. I am eager for a new series to emerge each spring. I find the art by Mellissa Castrillon to be so beautiful, and this book can easily be a coffee table all-star.

Thank you to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

#bookreview #LeaningTowardLight #poetry #TessTaylor