The Wolf Can Smell This is My Acre

The Wolf Can Smell This is My Acre by Klyd Watkins is an enjoyable book of poetry, filled with vivid nature imagery. That imagery seeks to elevate the ordinary to the level of the extraordinary through the lens of poetry, and largely succeeds. While there is too much sitting on porches and at sports games by the poet’s persona for this reviewer’s liking, this remains a strong collection with a powerful voice. The lack of motion is made up for by the odes to nature, the capturing of open truck windows in the woods on a November afternoon. Poetry, by nature, is somewhat insular and highly personal. It would have been interesting to have seen more questions being asked, something the poetic persona struggled with, as the poems lacked a certain tension, for all their beauty and careful word-crafting. That being said, this was an enjoyable collection that didn’t get stuck in poetic navel-gazing or purple prose. It felt like being in the hands of an accomplished poet and seeing his acre, the extraordinary of the ordinary, through his eyes.