Toucan Nest: Poems of Costa Rica

What happens when we enter unfamiliar realms, when we open ourselves to the unknown? Sometimes that not-knowing makes art possible. In Toucan Nest, the eighth book by Alaska State Writer Laureate Peggy Shumaker, her first vivid encounters with the rainforests of Costa Rica--with its basilisk lizards, bats, and bromeliads, its crocodiles, sloths, and strangler figs--refresh and renew our world in a work of startlingly beautiful mindfulness and imagination.

Peggy Shumaker is Alaska State Writer Laureate. Her previous book of poems is ＂Gnawed Bones.＂ Her lyrical memoir is ＂Just Breathe Normally.＂ ＂Toucan Nest＂,＂ ＂her most recent collection, grew from an eco-arts writing workshop in Costa Rica. Professor emerita from University of Alaska Fairbanks, Shumaker teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop. She is founding editor of Boreal Books, publishers of fine art and literature from Alaska. She edits the Alaska Literary Series at University of Alaska Press. Please visit her website at www.peggyshumaker.com.