I love poetry - have since I was a young girl - but I don’t often spend time with it these days. When I was offered a copy of this new book, though, I was excited to read it, and put aside a pending stack of novels and business tomes gladly. (This is a disclaimer: The book was a gift and the author an old friend, and this review my honest impression.)

In ‘House of Water’ Nienow comes across as a thoughtful, simple man who likes to cut the crap and get to the heart of things. His mediums for doing so in his life are not the ones you might guess; his weapons are poetry, and woodcraft. He build boats and assembles words. He builds a family, perhaps nearly wrecks it at times, continues building it. Sometimes poetry feels inexact, ephemeral, but these words seem solid, tactile. Reading them is a pleasure to be savored slowly while considering how we reach out and exert control over our environments, lives, and how little we really can control.