About the Book In her sophomore book of poetry, award-winning poet Susan Barba traces how the earth and our relationships to it-from land use, to land rights, to land art-inform our relationships to one another-- Book Synopsis A New England Book Award Finalist. Rich with shining interiors and tactile relationships, delicate human to delicate earth...Poems acting as guides, helping us navigate and remember...-- New York Times Magazine Susan Barbas collection of poems resembles the spheroid stone of its name; when cracked open, a glittering and fascinating crystalline structure is revealed but the stony sphere she offers us, and the beauty within, is nothing less than the earth. The word geode also houses within it ode, a praise poem. With both anguish and exaltation, Barba considers our time within the larger scale of deep-time. The species decreasing in number and disappeared and the possibility of human extinction haunt this book, while new generations and the possibility of renunciation of our old ways animate it. There is wonder here as well. She writes... Oak, whose girth exceeds my reach forever I am at your feet, looking up. Here is the world, Barba reminds us, like a ball, in our hands. Poems include Earthwards, Letter from Gaia, River, and Final Letter of Stone. geode is for anyone who loves poetrys uniquely precise and enduring power.