Nicholas Skaldetvind’s In the Way of Things invites us on a coastal, irresistibly watery journey that spans from Italy to Greece to California and elsewhere. This poet’s deep connection with the microscopic changes in the natural world and how these changes imbricate our language and thinking resonates in his long lines and gorgeous descriptions. Throughout the collection, we are compelled to follow a relentless searcher—whose searching for the place of the self in the world and with others is not only marvelously articulated but also genuine and very intensely alive, “feeding on every living thing.”

—Christina Pugh, author of The Right Hand