Tossed Stones Clearly Know Where to Fall

In this beautiful, tough-minded collection, Tossed Stones Clearly Know Where to Fall, Pete Heiden’s poems make clear: stones, water, seasons and all creatures on earth KNOW their places in our universe, and humans, throughout time and throughout this book, struggle and work to learn what their places should have been, could have been, might be if our earth gets the chance to survive all that people have done to it. Heiden does a remarkable job guiding us to ideas and concrete images of what endurance means. In a strange way, when the very few humans who are allowed into this collection, through epigraph or brief narratives, they join with all the things of the earth this poet learns from, and help us see what Heiden considers to be the purpose of living here on earth.

These poems are smart, the world carefully studied, the visions are clear — I admired and appreciated each poem, each manuscript note. This poet loves the natural world so deeply, and his fierce judgements and clear focus in these poems stops us in our tracks. We stay still, and we read. A wonderful book.