For a deep dive into the restorative wells of poetic grace, attend a reading of Carey Hunter Davis’ revelatory new chapbook, “Beauty,” from 5-6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, at Vashon Bookshop.

A long-time islander, Hunter’s regimen of outdoor exploration and pre-dawn writing has given us a dream-like portrayal of the natural world as source and solace at once, interwoven with human longing and the wisdom that comes from absorbing earth’s lessons.

“Beauty,” (Kelsay Books, Utah, 2024) is Hunter’s third book of poetry, and joins “The A Poems” (dancinggirlpress, 2017) and “It’s The Way We Live,” (Moonstone Press, 2019) in a trilogy of short poems laser-focused on life in the wild. Published in many journals since 1986, Hunter’s style evokes magic realism, in which the visible and invisible offer us multiple landscapes and alternatives to man-made despair. Her influences include Billy Collins, Robert Penn Warren, and Mary Oliver.

Of her beginnings, Hunter says, “I didn’t choose poetry. It chose me.” She began her own writing in fourth grade, daydreaming, looking out the window, more interested in spots on trees than in the repetitive 1950s reading primers.

“I wanted to tell my own stories,” she said.

Her poetry arrives in flashes of inspiration, not from the known self.

“Something beyond the ego, cemented in the world” speaks to her. After the routines of rural family life with husband, musician Wilson Abbott, and three now-grown children, she has risen for years at 4:30 a.m. to listen to the silence and write whatever comes.

Islander Lynn Carrigan is Professor Emerita, University of Washington School of Social Work.