The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living

The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living is Leslie Anne Bustard’s first poetry book. It is a collection of around eighty poems in various forms—free verse, tanka, and ekphrasis. These poems were written from October 2020-October 2023, while the author was dealing with the reality of cancer and the hard side effects of fighting it. Artist Ross Wilson says, "These poems exalt the wonders of the everyday, wonders we so often neglect. They bring inward and outward illumination to our eyes and to our hearts, encouraging us to hope, love, feel, to reach out again, and again."

Foreword by Hannah Anderson.

Leslie Bustard’s new poems are the stuff of a visionary reality, penetrating beyond life’s surfaces in the most generous way, expectant, full of the juice of a life of active reflection. She sees a scar as a sign of hope—grace celebrated in the midst of anguish. These poems illustrate so well how a poet penetrates beyond such surfaces (though even those surfaces have significance), opening up thoughtful responses to ordinary events, and finding ways to celebrate these “ordinaries” that are far from ordinary.
— Luci Shaw, poet and author of The O in Hope: A Poem of Wonder

Published by Square Halo Books