Winner of the prestigious Dorset Prize, Sandra Meek’s Biogeography is an extraordinary poetic journey through the intersections of the natural world and human experience. From the desolate beauty of the American West to the lush rainforests of Suriname, Meek weaves powerful, transformative poems that explore themes of environmental destruction, human frailty, and resilience. These works illuminate the profound connections between geography and personal history, offering epiphanies that redefine our understanding of the world.

In Biogeography, the devastation of the natural landscape mirrors the erosion of human relationships, yet Meek finds solace in the enduring beauty of fleeting moments: the delicate pattern of spiderwebs glistening in the morning dew, or the sky’s patina of volcanic ash. Through language that balances lush imagery and scientific precision, she invites readers to rediscover the “nomenclature of wonder” and embrace the possibility of renewal.

Format: paperback
ISBN: 978-1-932195-70-5

“Sandra Meek’s poetry is lush yet precise, balancing complex scientific concepts with vivid imagery. Her exploration of the human connection to nature is deeply moving, revealing a fraught yet undeniable bond. This is not pastoral nostalgia but a raw, layered excavation of our place in the world.”

—Rachel Abramowitz, Colorado Review

“Meek’s poems are luminous, filled with a quiet intensity. Her language dances between metaphor and reality, capturing both the beauty and brutality of life. Biogeography is a stunning achievement, offering readers a glimpse into the divine substance of existence.”

—Phebe Davidson, Asheville Poetry Review

“In Biogeography, Meek challenges her readers to engage deeply with her intricate poetry. Each line carries a weight of meaning that resonates long after the page is turned. Her deft use of metaphor and innovative form highlights the fragility and resilience of life.”

—Kelly Cherry, On The Seawall

“Sandra Meek’s collection is a masterful blend of sensual imagery and stark realism. Her poetry inhabits the liminal spaces between joy and grief, presence and absence. Biogeography reminds us of the transience of all things and the profound beauty found in that fleeting nature.”

—Afaa Michael Weaver

“Meek’s language feels both immediate and ancient, her poems embodying the tension between human transience and the enduring landscape. Her work resonates on a visceral level, offering a rich tapestry of sensory and emotional experiences.”

—Larissa Szporluk

“[S]o often does Meek get it right that her poems are at once lush and precise, expansive enough to incorporate complex scientific concepts and yet specific when they need to be (‘spidering / to hairline fractures frozen across an eggshell’). In fact, it is when she balances metaphor and pure image that the writing is strongest…. This is not a pastoral book; the reader will find no idealized memories or set pieces here. Rather, the poems unearth and expose the primordial link between humans and nature, as well as examine the speaker’s own fraught understanding of her place in the natural world.”

—Rachel Abramowitz, Colorado Review

Chronographia Begin at mile zero: a satellite dish starless and webbed, great black wheel shipwrecked to eavesdropping; a blue trailer, aluminum skin half bricked, the man inside tamping the trowel higher, packing in that flamboyant faith in weather which was youth, and winter’s calm, the forest floor littered with possibility, pine needles knit like wishbones’ twinned arms. Break one: luck’s what remains most whole, a matchstick’s matted head before the strike, before wind’s godlike finger crooked up spring, before the trash fire leaped to the woods, lapping up trees as if all would be made visible in our end. Before mushrooms, small gray ears, bloomed in the ash, something to gather before night’s lit with the static of remote fires and the one unblinking star pacing the sky catching our voices, casting them down.

0.4 lbs

6 × .5 × 9 in

Winner of the Dorset Prize