Riding Horses in the Harbor

Beth Oast Williams's debut chapbook, Riding Horses in the Harbor, explores the intersection of the human experience with our natural landscape. Raised on the Elizabeth River, Williams paints the waterways of Southeastern Virginia as a rich backdrop for both memory poems and for ones that look to the future. Here, floods and storms pair with parental loss and the realization that human beings have such little control over nature's force.

The opening poem, "Elizabeth River Rising", invokes man...