The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House: A Collection of Poems

"Open your sticky eyes to sunlight weaving a path through the leaves, just to caress your face. Wash away your crusted tears and let the soft breeze dry your cheeks. Fill your empty pockets with acorns when you go." In her first poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House, award-winning poet and author Melissa Ann Goodwin uses simple vignettes from ordinary life to create a powerful sense of the shared human experience. Through vivid imagery, beautifully intermingled words that draw out a wide array of emotions, and an impeccable sense of timing, she immerses you in places and circumstances that are not yours, but experience as if they were. Goodwin does not sugarcoat sorrow or suffering, but balances the bitter with humor, encouragement, and wonder, and always, in the end, bends toward hope.