Otolith -- the ear stone -- is a series of bones that help us to orient ourselves in space. In her debut collection, Emily Nilsen turns the reader's attention outward, revealing an intertidal state between the rootedness of place and the uncertainty of human connection. These poems are full of life and decay; they carry the odours of salmon rivers and forests of fir, of salal growing in the fog-bound mountain slopes. Combining a scientist's precision and a poet's sensitivity, Nilsen lets nothing escape her attention, whether the geography of nostalgia or the relentless migration of time.
