Vivian Finley Nida

From Circus Town, USA Vivian Finley Nida

In her first collection of poems, Vivian Finley Nida shows us how much the smallest moments hold. She says, "There's beauty in the bond/between elephants and humans/especially during daily bath." Raised in Hugo, Oklahoma, winter quarters for several circuses, Nida's childhood stories are funny, intuitive, and heartrending snapshots. "One percent of my income/is from lemonade/the rest/from charity," she says.

Always, Nida invites us into nature. Whether at the family cabin in rural Oklahoma on the lake, her elegant observations abound. "We breathe/secure as dry leaves/shaking on branches," she says. Nida understands how the ordinary and transcendent mesh in the pain and pleasure of everyday life.