Author of SOULSCAPES, the fifth volume in her “Scapes” series, Lee Woodman credits “adventuresome parents and a rich and tapestried childhood in France, India, and the United States” for her eclectic worldview. The forty-two poems in this collection reflect an insatiable curiosity and broad perspective that intertwines rational skepticism and scientific fact with an open heart for the mystical and unexplained.

Woodman’s poetry delves into the enigma of the divine in all its manifestations, from the structured doctrines of major world religions to the esoteric realms of witchcraft, tarot, and the occult. This exploration is fueled by Woodman’s conviction that all beings are intrinsically linked to the universe, prompting readers to ponder the existence of a cosmic oneness that transcends conventional religious boundaries.

SOULSCAPES opens with the innocent curiosity of a child just beginning to wonder about the mysteries of life and the universe. In “A Child Asks,” the poet answers the fundamental spiritual question, “What is God?” with “I think, not darkly, / God is death.” Death, here, is not a grim ending of existence to be dreaded, nor the portal to divine judgment and eternal punishment or reward, but merely part of the natural cycle of life, death, and rebirth: “God is in the flower.” Throughout SOULSCAPES, Woodman explores themes of death and renewal through metaphors of nature, from the peacocks of “Beyond Beauty” who mate, shed their brilliant plumage, and “come alive again, regrowing / a train of greater glory and splendor— / a resurrection” to the winged beetle in “The Bug I Cannot Name,” who ominously intones, “You are not here for long / not on this balcony / not in this univerzzz.” (The poet promptly squashes the pesky truth-telling bug.)

The collection’s exploration of death leads the reader down a few dark avenues, such as the bleak, apocalyptic imagery of “Benumbed” (“A moose with heavy antlers / backs away from the lake / Dead otters line the creek”) or the heartbreaking “Orca Ode,” in which a grieving orca pushes the body of her dead calf through polluted ocean waters. In most of the poems, however, Woodman leavens her serious subject matter with wry, self-effacing humor, as in “Excursion (Ars Poetica Odyssey)”: “I look around for metaphor, find croissants.” One of the book’s most memorable entries, “Fillilulu,” tells of the death of the poet’s father while conveying his irrepressible whimsy through the image of birds that fly “backwards and upside-down.”

Death, for Woodman, is just one aspect of the divine mystery of existence that unites all living things. In the deeply moving poem “Rags,” which closes the collection, Woodman connects the ancient tradition of Bengali women weaving bits of cloth into blankets with a young fashion designer in Tokyo, who incorporates the technique in her own work. To the author, they are both “seekers and creators, peering across time and space, / sharing stories, stitched in history.”

Overall, SOULSCAPES celebrates the myriad ways that human beings seek and define the sacred in our interconnected lives—from the rational to the mystical, the scientific and the magical. Thanks to its execution of that purpose, the book itself is cause for celebration.

By navigating the contradictory aspects of life with grace and acceptance, Lee Woodman’s SOULSCAPES invites readers to question, consider, and delight in the mysteries of the soul.

~Edward Sung for IndieReader