Ann Elizabeth Carson's ark was a gift carved by her fourteen-year-old uncle who died shortly after she was born. Jack didn't have enough time to carve the animals and so she fills it with her own cargo of memories contained in poems, stories, essays and postcards spanning her lifelong voyage. Rich in sensuous details and meticulously observed, her travels to Manitoulin and Monhegan Islands glow with fierce love for the land and seascape. Her incisive, sometimes disturbing essays, meditations on human nature, environment, feminism and aging command our attention and response. Brimming with the wisdom of an elder determined to celebrate even as these moorings loosen and she leaves the ark behind to be filled with my children's memories, this book is a treasure. -- Donna Langevin, author of Brimming, Piquant Press, 2019