Rash yet tender, chastened yet lush, Headwaters is a book of opposites, a book of wild abandon by one of the most formally exacting poets of our time. Animals populate its pages-owl, groundhog, fox, each with its own inimitable survival skills-and the poet who so meticulously observes their behaviours has accumulated a lifetime's worth of skills herself: she too has survived. The power of these extraordinary poems lies in their recognition that all our experience is ultimately useless-that human beings are at every moment beginners, facing the earth as if for the first time. "Don't you think I'm doing better," asks the first poem. "You got sick you got well you got sick," says the last.

Eschewing punctuation, forgoing every symmetry, the poems hurl themselves forward, driven by an urgent need to speak. Headwaters is a book of wisdom that refuses to be wise, a book of fresh beginnings by an American poet writing at the height of her powers.

Ellen Bryant Voigt is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Messenger, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her numerous honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. She lives in Vermont and Minnesota.