This is the most powerful and personal collection of poetry I have ever read, remarked Tom Spence, author of Observations and Commentary: One Hundred Poems.

A book of our time, asserted Veronica Golos, author of GIRL (winner, International Naji Naaman Honor Prize for Poetry, Beirut, Lebanon), and Vocabulary of Silence (winner, New Mexico Poetry Award).

The poems in this collection reflect the realities of happiness, strength, and love, as well as cumulative disabilities, death, grief-and a passage to healing. This book blends Humanity with Poetry, both of which the poet believes are essential to life.

Deering has won numerous poetry awards, including the Wyoming Arts Council Poetry Fellowship.

From the poem Monsoon:

You spoke of your slight limp,

crippled arm, problematic breathing.

I was drawn

to your sense of humor, energy,

your large-as-living smile...

Her first book, Havoc & Solace: Poems of the Inland West, was published by Sastrugi Press, 2018.

Imagine watching a moose drink from a lake at nightfall. Gazing deep into a coyote's eyes. Dancing rain that makes everyone young.

Havoc & Solace: Poems from the Inland West is a shining example of accessible and engaging poetry that restores a vital connection with our natural world. Through the eyes of an award-winning poet, these poems take us beyond physical, mental, and historical constraints, to the wild beating heart of life in the American inland West.

Is it possible to experience an American region through writing? If the possibility exists, it is through this book.

Braided through the writing:

Why are we strangers, awkward with each other?
Who are we, left standing?
Show us how to bear the numbness, or the blazing and the chill.
Help us face forward, listen, breathe each other's air.