In My Name Is Another Word, poet and songwriter Beth Wood chronicles the building of a life story on her own terms. Who are we without the stories we are told about ourselves, many of them untrue? Wood builds a house of meaning made from inner knowing, observation, deep listening, honoring of grief and love in equal measure. At times light-hearted, at times resolute and wise, these poems sing an invitation to dream and to build. "Poem as gate, poem as offering, poem as life raft... poem for you."
"In this, her fourth poetry title, Wood reveals the disruptive good that lies under the surface of our lives if we'll but look. Her keen observation of place, people and emotion shows us how. The author's curiosity about the easy and hard, as though the same thing, lights each of her poems from the inside out."
-Ellen Waterston, author of Hotel Domilocos, Poems and Walking the High Desert, 2024 Stuart H. Holbrook and Soapstone Bread and Roses awards winner, Oregon Poet Laureate