Robin Reagler reviews
These Few Seeds
by Meghan Sterling

These Few Seeds, the debut book of poetry by Meghan Sterling, brings the dangers of climate change into sharp focus through the lens of the parent’s ardent love of a child. This beautiful collection of lyric poems opens and closes in prayer, placing faith and hope in a young family endangered by wildfires. Although Sterling’s poems detail difficulty and loss, the confirmation of hope always remains: ”I decided here to love all that I was given,/no matter how much it hurt.”

These are eloquent poems of memory and the complexity of desire. Sterling’s poems of birth and new motherhood in These Few Seeds show us the power of this bond with original and blazing imagery. In “Cyclops,” Sterling asserts, “I have loved my daughter’s prizefighter face, one eye swollen shut with the effort of being born.” Transcending cultural tropes, Sterling’s language brands us with the fact of her love in unique details that feel absolutely real. 

These poems share with us the secret, deeply personal moments that give each of our lives their distinct meaning. The personal is deftly interwoven with the global. For example, in “Upon Hearing the U.N.’s Report That One Million Animal and Plant Species Are at Risk of Extinction Due to Climate Change and Human Activity,” the poem concludes with the image of the young daughter placing a “crumbling crown” of leaves on her mother’s head. These poems dare us to love one another and love nature, despite everything that scares us in this broken world.

Meghan Sterling’s work has been published in Rattle, Cider Press Review, Literary Mama, Glass, Rise Up Reviewand others. She was awarded a Hewnoaks Artist Colony Residency in 2019 and 2021. Her poetry collection, These Few Seeds (Terrapin Books, 2021) is out now. Read her work at meghansterling.com. 

Robin Reagler won the Best Book Award (Backlash Press, 2021) for Into The The. She also wrote Q (Lily Poetry Books, forthcoming 2022) and two chapbooks, Teeth & Teeth, selected by Natalie Diaz, Charlotte Mew Prize (Headmistress Press, 2018) and Dear Red Airplane (Seven Kitchens Press, 2012, 2018).