Poems in Tangible Terrain explore a girl's 1960s youth as she navigates interior family dynamics set against the expansive natural landscape of a semi-rural northern California county.

“In her chapbook, Tangible Terrain, Christy Wise engages a sublime friction between her home ‘ground,’ the world she was reared in and the alternate ‘ground’ of the city taken on by her father, a melancholic love letter to alternate lives that beckon like sirens to the ships of our seemingly secure lives. As the author lets us deeper into her life, we see the fears of adults, the dreams and advice they thought best to dispense, manifesting deeper in the family and the poet’s consciousness, until we are released into the embrace of the natural world as the way to reclaim our ‘ground’.”

–Paul Corman-Roberts, author of Bone Moon Palace and The Sincere

“Tangible Terrain transported me to a different time. I could feel the poet’s connection to nature and the tenderness with her grandmother.”

— Christine Brown-Quinn, The Female Capitalist®

“I am not surprised by how gifted Christy Wise is, how precise her use of language, and how imaginative her use of words. Her deeply thoughtful collection of poems is a joy to read. I love them all, but especially each of the “My Father’s City” poems, “The Field,” “Gold, Dust,” and “Biologist in Bliss” which had me laughing out loud. And the closing piece, “Wisdom Like Boss,” will linger. Unforgettable. A beautiful collection to be savored.”

— Katherine Kingsland, Multimedia Producer