The poems in Iva Ticic reveal the sacred in the seemingly small things of everyday, and the eternal in the course of nature and the passing of time. These are modern folk songs of love and belonging with real hurts, and we are embers of her choir, invited to join in the chorus. There are captivating moments when Ticic observes yearnings she scarcely knew she had but made it her business to get to know well. How can we help but fall deeply when what we feel is real? We find healing by accompanying Ticic on the journey, considering her expansive vision and the lengths she has come while scratching this surface, the milestones that mark what she has conquered, rich with "Heritage. History, Culture. Hope": milestones that sustain us all the way through to the final everlasting word.

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“I am not one/to harp on heritage/but there is a calm that comes/with sitting still in where you are from,” writes Iva Ticic. A high school teacher across the globe, this talent shakes hands with the ineffable. Calm at home, she can’t sit still. Where is home? Zest propels our poet-pilot whose elegant, wistful poems float in the sky of these pages as she lands in China and New York. Left Croatia in her twenties. That matured her. Left her culture and mastered another language. That gave her inexhaustible detachment. Can’t teach that. She makes a harp of her heritage and adds beautiful music to this world. Hvala, Iva Ticic.

—Spencer Reece, author of The Clerk’s Tale, The Road to
Emmaus, and The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir.