Make Me Good Soil

For fans of Ada Limón and Kate Baer, Make Me Good Soil is a luminous, intimate new poetry collection from celebrated author Sophie Strand that explores personal love, loss, trauma healing, and illness through the lens of interspecies connection.

Sophie Strand’s poetry is attuned to the too-often ignored truth that human beings are not self-contained, and are rather sustained by vast, living networks beyond their physical selves. Writing through this lens of attention, Strand traces the threads between language and the ecosystems that sustain it, opening poetry itself into a multi-voiced chorus. 

• "Strand, like Dickinson, leads us in verse back to the original cathedral—the holiest, forgotten place, somewhere between earth and the dark matter of our own miraculous embodiment." 
  Meggan Watterson, The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Mary Magdalene Revealed
• “Sophie Strand reminds us that we were never separate from the living world to begin with. Make Me Good Soil is luminous, intimate, and breathtaking: a collection that blurs the line between myth, body, and landscape until each poem feels like both a prayer and a remembering. These are poems that invite us back into relationship with the earth, with one another, and with the wild mystery that lives beneath it all.” 
  Sarah Potter, author of Sober Magic
• "I’m tempted to call Sophie Strand a modern master of mythopoeic literature. But she would never accept such a hierarchical title. So instead, I’ll say she’s a mycelial network that finds information deep in the soil and transmits it through language into the human ecosystem. In Make Me Good Soil, Sophie leads us on an enchanting journey through her nutrient-dense observations and imagination, reminding us that a world of mystery and magic is present just below the surface." 
  James McCrae, author of Instructions Before Visiting Earth
• “Strand's work feels like standing in a high place above a dramatic vista, feeling the awe of nature rising up like a tide to meet you; yet, there is a quality of sacredness and intimacy in her voice, nudging us with earnest emotion to look out on that huge and sweeping landscape below.” 
  Jarod K. Anderson, poet, novelist, and author of Something in the Woods Loves You
• "Equal parts powerful, pleasurable, and heart-rending, Strand's evocative poems forces an honest appraisal of the self and relationships, while also offering nuanced and curious reminders that we are all woven into the intimate fabric of the natural world.
  
  Make Me Good Soil is an instant classic, which you'll turn to again and again." 
  Dr. Julia Skinner, food writer, culinary educator, and creative ecosystems guide
• "To experience Sophie Strand's poetry is to witness what it feels like to make love to life itself. This body of work is full of awe, eros, and will be studied by those who love language and the land." 
  Noor Tagouri, journalist, At Your Service