If You Choose To Come brims with awe and gratitude for where Karen Luke Jackson lives: a cluster of cottages circling a goat pasture in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The poems, both narrative and lyrical, explore conversations among neighbors, interactions with strangers, and the quiet time in nature which contributed to the author’s healing following heart surgery. With a sense of humor and humility, Jackson paints with words a world that appears magical at times, but she does not turn away from the harsh reality of personal, national, or even weather-related storms. If living in such a storied place is a gift to Jackson, her poetry is a gift to readers. Like a favorite picnic spot, these poems will invite people to return again and again.

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What others are saying ...

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If you choose to read this stunning collection, you’ll be immersed in images of the natural world so vivid and fresh that you’ll feel like you are experiencing nature’s beauty and mystery for the first time.

          Eric Nelson, author of Horse Not Zebra

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These poems offer a meditative approach to observations with lush descriptions and a musician’s ear for sonic structure. Jackson is skillful at contemplating the ordinary until we see a flash of the magical.

         Malaika King Albrecht, author of The Stumble Fields

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I urge you to savor these poems, which I found rare and lovely as a "redbird's wing brushing my cheek."  

         Marion Starling Boyer, winner of the 2021

          Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize for Ice Hours