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A joyous celebration—rapt, exquisite, spellbinding—the artemisia is a triumph.

  —Cyrus Cassells, author of Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch?

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Somewhere in lyric poetry’s once upon a time, long ago—Sappho teaches the alphabet’s songs on the nature of Love. Will Barnes is a student in that school, tracing the myths, memorizing the fragments, learning by rote the earthly declensions. The seminar is Socratic, as you’ll hear—a gentle call and response that turns answers back into questions, and questions back into wonder— “I’ve seen the deer by the creekbank rise / like wind and flame upward together.” In the old grammar, I want to believe, that to see is also to be seized. Ask Actaeon about the nature of vision. Artemis is the moon-star-bird of dearest love, bathing, even now, in the heart’s deep woods—no better guide than the artemisia to share a glimpse, and teach us how to suffer, gladly, the consequence.

      —Dan Beachy-Quick, author of Arrows

(Inlandia Institute publication)

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“…and what is it that you long for that you cannot have?” asks the voice in the artemisia. Will Barnes’ collection leans into an almost perfect-in-nature intimacy, forbidden. This is a gorgeous and daring collection, as frenetic and sensually woven as the human heart.   

       —Catherine Strisik, author of Insectum Gravitis

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