A daughter-father relationship and threats to a way of life mingle in Fat for Our Stories by Vivan Faith Prescott, a native of Alaska.  Prescott and her father harvested salmon together; several poems describe that labor, its joys and difficulties.  Others comment more specifically on changes in the climate, leading to a sense of things out of season. The reader learns about both the life of salmon and the concerns of those who depend on them in a series of gentle poems using a variety of forms.

There are many sad notes, like “We were once good at reading weather.” in “Five Degrees Above Normal.” but also hope, as in the end of “On a Variety of Temporal and Spatial Scales”:

The scent of my natal stream
still awakens me, the sea butterfly
still stirs my morning coffee.”

This chapbook is well worth ordering from Green Linden Press, especially for those like me who have not personally experienced a life dependent on nature’s balance.