In 2016, we released Inverness poet David Bailey's debut book of poetry, Journeywork. Now we're publishing his second book, Wonderstudies, which is set to be released later this summer.

The arc of Journeywork landed in a homecoming after years of traveling. Wonderstudies is what grew out of that newfound home and community, with the endless trove of forests, mountains, and wild beaches of Northern California. Wounds and shadows were waiting in that opening time, along with new light and inspiration, and the dual modalities of walking alone in nature and being with friends served to make the four years during which these poems were written as healing as they were challenging.

Wonder is explored as a vital facet of our true nature, where human beings are an outgrowth of “the universe’s urge to wonder over itself.” The veil is pulled back from ordinary things, to reveal cosmic miracles hidden in plain sight: how a tree builds itself out of the air’s carbon that was fused in our ancestral star eons ago; how the small light of the Andromeda galaxy in our night sky contains a trillion stars; and how the wondering eyes of a young child glow with endlessness, like the nightsky. And inquiry—the other meaning of wondering—serves to open the unknown depths encountered without and within: Is this the very mystery that blew the stars aflame looking through me now?

What anchors nearly every poem in Wonderstudies is an intention to make use of the insight, healing, and inspiration we receive—to, as the spiritual teacher Adyashanti put it, “widen our circle of regard” and “be a redemptive presence in the world.” The need for this has become all too clear, but it’s not enough to hear only about the dire state of things—we will only save what we love, and poetry has always offered us a chance to cleanse our doors of perception, see afresh this magnificent planet-home, to open our hearts to life in all its forms, and to let our innate gifts be activated by the state of need around us.

All night

your soul called to you


like birdsong, urging you

to retrieve its many-colored

medicines—you could fill your life

with any of them.

Wake now, with the path forking

underfoot again—one way

wide, sun-scorched


and familiar. The other

green, and redeemingly

wild.

Wonderstudies contains original illustrations by Rob Moss Wilson.

As a micropress, we rely on funding from direct pre-orders to get books printed. We hope that, after you read this, you are as excited as we are for David's new book, and we hope you find this exploration of wonder and beauty as necessary in these times as we do.