At the Foot of a Mountain

For his second collection, At the Foot of a Mountain, Kevin J. McDaniel's speakers wrestle with what feel like traumatic moments, moments (big or small) in a person's life when he or she believes an "entire mountainside" will come crashing down, as the speaker laments in the chapbook's title poem, "At the Foot of a Mountain." Nevertheless, by the end, readers are encouraged by the speaker's hope in a rebirth: "but I know spring/will come again on wings/of a gentler breeze that uplifts/saplings rooted sideways/in moonmilk underground."