The Earth Avails: Poems, Mark Wunderlich,  2014 

Wunderlich is a gay poet living in the Hudson Valley who read this year at Bookstock in Woodstock, VT.  This book of poems is largely based on a small book of prayers written in German in 1876 and found at his family home in Wisconsin.  As he states, the book was small enough to be kept in a pocket and ‘exudes utility:  during times of duress, this collection of prayers could be consulted,  and herein, answers could be found.”  This explanation turned what had been a somewhat turnoff religious bent to a beautiful set of pleas for help from drought, sunshine, safe passage at sea, safety from a storm.  Intermixed with these elegiac poems are ones that sing of the beauty of nature in a rural setting from shooting a raccoon in a have-a-heart trap to the beauty of a January thaw.  Lovely, readable, and touching, these are good poems to have around your country house for that special occasion.