In her latest poetry collection, The Wonderment (Wildhouse Poetry), Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer roots us in a rural landscape and community. These poems find faith in nature and in people at their best (or trying). Conversational, accessible, tender. You don't need an advanced degree in poetics to unlock what's good here—these are poems to share with friends and loved-ones.
Here we experience conversation with the check-out clerk, mudpuddling in rivers, collecting strawberries at a U-Pick farm, running wild through a friend's rose garden, and skiing through the forest.
There are also insightful moments of mistaken meaning, such as in the poem "On the Street in Lancaster, Ohio," in which a stranger passes the speaker on the street and tells her she loves her costume:
It wasn't till after she left
I laughed, delighted
to be called out
for dressing up as myself,
a person I've been
trying to be my whole life.
That's the kind of generosity of spirit you find throughout Wahtola Trommer's poems. You can't read this collection without feeling like you've met a friend. Her work is devoid of snark. Instead, she offers groundedness, good humor, sincerity.
Wahtola Trommer shows us her world, what's thorny, uncomfortable, what's true. For anyone who's suffered loss, her words are the sun spotting the forest floor. As in the poem, "Mudpuddling" where she writes about afternoons spent with her kids covering their bodies in mud and running into the river to wash it off again:
Then I still believed in a shiny version of happiness,
but fifteen years later, haven't I come to trust there is something
nourishing in death, in ache, in turning toward fear—
something necessary I need to sustain me?
Or, later in the collection, when she remembers her father in the poem, "How He Loved to Fish," which ends with these lines:
and the current of his joy
was so strong that years later
it still carries me like a boat
in the unpredictable waves.
The Wonderment is available for pre-order, with a release date of September 8, 2026.
We're thrilled to have Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer with us here on The Poetry Shop 5 to discuss the books that have influenced her poetic journey, and what she suggests we read next.
Welcome to the Poetry Shop Five, Rosemerry! Tell us about your new book, The Wonderment.
In the last hours of my dad's life, he said to me —or more truly, perhaps, he said to himself —"From our birth...to our death...the wonderment." Those words became a compass, a daily invitation to marvel at what is here, the altar of the ordinary, so it's no surprise that it inspired the title for this book, The Wonderment. Every poem was written as a response to our stuff, our habits, our struggles, for instance digging potatoes, driving behind a slow driver on a windy canyon road, grieving unimaginable loss, laughing with a friend, peeling a pomegranate, listening to the news. The book is based in four gateways to wonder: The Opening, The Noticing, The Deepening, The Belonging. If there were a driving principle, it would be this: The miraculous is not found apart from everyday life, but within it. What happens when we abandon our certainty, soften our being, revel in our humanity? How might we come to see every moment of this life, even the moments we might rather resist, as treasure?
Who was your "gateway poet," the poet whose first book or poem got you interested in poetry?
As an elementary student, I loved reading Shel Silverstein's books aloud to my grandmother. I loved the play in them and the musicality. I think the message I got from his books was that poetry could be fun, and that just because it was silly didn't mean it didn't have a dark underbelly. In fact, play is one way to engage with what we would rather resist. That truth is still at the heart of why I write poems--what a paradox that we can meet pain and heartache and find, somehow, small pleasure. It was in ninth grade that an Episcopal priest gave me a copy of 73 Poems by e.e. cummings, a book that changed how I thought about what a poem could do. Here was someone playful as Silverstein, but writing for adults, and I loved the way his poems invited me to break rules of syntax and morphology as a way to say something beyond what the words themselves could say. In college came Gerard Manley Hopkins with his incredible sonics, passion for the environment and wrestling with god and his own humanity. It was Hopkins who inspired me to get a MA in English Language & Linguistics so I could become more fluent and playful in my own language and bring that into poetry.
Which poetry books are you currently reading?
Accidental Devotions by Kelli Russell Agodon, Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke trans. by Mark S. Burrows.
I think I am always reading many books at once, so here are a few titles from the top of the pile. One thing I love about Kelli Russell Agodon's work is how she weaves irreverence and reverence, and that's certainly true in Accidental Devotions. Even so poems might be inspired by an Ouija board or Alexa and mis-readings, they bring in themes of loneliness, belonging, love and vulnerability. Devotion is truly at the heart of the book. I love how these poems make me laugh and cry and feel and want to stop writing because I love them so much and make me want to write more because I love them so much.
I would have liked to have added Rainer Maria Rilke to the "gateway" poets, but I figured I had already pushed it with three when you only asked for one. Rilke's poems did more than inform my poetics, they have utterly changed the way I live my life. Over the years, I have read many translations, and I am so grateful for the work of Mark S. Burrows, who brings a deep knowledge of the language, Rilke's life, and his own poetic intelligence and sensitivity. Translation is so complex, and Rilke's work is so complex, and I so appreciate that these translations are true to the complexity. These are poems and translations in service to mystery.
Is there a book on the craft of writing that you recommend to poets?
So many! But top is The Practice of Creative Writing by Heather Sellers. This book isn't specifically for poetry, it also covers fiction, creative nonfiction, prose poems, plays and screenplays and graphic novels. What I most love about it is that Heather Sellers speaks to what is at the heart of all art--what kind of questions to ask, how images work, what is the role of audience, how to focus (and unfocus), how to play with language, why tension is essential, how energy works, how to identify and play with patterns, and more. I love her writing style--so conversational and encouraging. And she offers so many great examples in many genres, plus launching points for our own writing.
Who is a new voice in poetry that we need to check out–someone with a debut book or recent release?
Moudi Sbeity! Check out his new book (first book), Alhamdulillah Anyway. I first met Moudi several years ago and immediately was drawn to his clear-eyed, open-hearted, contemplative way of seeing the world. This comes through in every poem. He's a Lebanese-American, born in Texas, raised in Lebanon, then evacuated back to the US where he lived in Utah as a gay man. Though he has seen his fair share of struggle (as you can read about in his memoir which was also just released, Habibi Means Beloved), he still meets the world with wonder, curiosity, devotion, generosity and love. I would love for his poems to be required reading for being a human.
Finally, what’s a poetry book that others may not know about but deserves a shout out?
Temporary Shelters (Cornerstone Press) by Grant Clauser. I don't remember where I first started seeing Grant Clauser's work. I do remember that as soon as I read him, I looked him up, read as much as I could find, then ordered his book. His poems are steeped in the natural world and feature deer, marigolds, cottonwoods, pheasant, creeks, strawberries, stars ... but every poem is an offering to see our humanness. How do we belong? Where do we find solace? What is our role in a world that is falling apart? He's grounded and simultaneously somehow uplifting. He looks unflinchingly at heartache and still brings me to my knees with beauty.
About Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has written and shared a poem a day since 2006. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. A daily, curated audio version is available on The Poetic Path, on the Ritual app. She co-hosts Emerging Form (podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal), and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, Washington Post’s Book Club, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her most recent books are All the Honey, The Unfolding, Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to Deepen Your Writing Practice, and The Wonderment. Her spoken-word albums include Dark Praise and Risking Love. As poet laureate for Evermore, she helps others explore grief and love through poetry. She’s been an organic fruit grower, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison. She loves singing with the radio—or with silence. You will almost never catch her wearing clothes with a pattern. Her three-word mantra: I’m still learning. If limited to one word: Adjust.
Books referenced in this article.
The Wonderment (Wildhouse Poetry) by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Collected works of Shel Silverstein and Gerard Manley Hopkins
73 Poems (Liveright Publishing Corporation) by e.e. Cummings
Accidental Devotions (Copper Canyon Press) by Kelli Russell Agodon
Sonnets to Orpheus (Monkfish Book Publishing) by Rainer Maria Rilke trans. by Mark S. Burrows
The Practice of Creative Writing (Bedford Books) by Heather Sellers
Alhamdulillah Anyway (Fernwood Press) by Moudi Sbeity
Temporary Shelters (Cornerstone Press) by Grant Clauser