How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons): Poetry

Written by Barbara Kingsolver

Narrated by Barbara Kingsolver

In this intimate collection, the beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and more than a dozen other New York Times bestsellers, winner or finalist for the Pulitzer and countless other prizes, now trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are smartly crafted, emotionally rich, and luminous. 

In her second poetry collection, Barbara Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with “how to” poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship and family, and making peace (or not) with death, in the many ways it finds us. Some poems reflect on the redemptive powers of art and poetry itself; others consider where everything begins.

Closing the book are poems that celebrate natural wonders—birdsong and ghost-flowers, ruthless ants, clever shellfish, coral reefs, deadly deserts, and thousand-year-old beech trees—all speaking to the daring project of belonging to an untamed world beyond ourselves.

Altogether, these are poems about transcendence: finding breath and lightness in life and the everyday acts of living. It’s all terribly easy and, as the title suggests, not entirely possible. Or at least, it is never quite finished. 

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Sep 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062993106

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides. Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989), Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990), Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), Flight Behavior (2012), Unsheltered (2018), How To Fly (In 10,000 Easy Lessons) (2020), Demon Copperhead (2022), and coauthored with Lily Kingsolver, Coyote's Wild Home (2023). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001.  Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, and in 2023 won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been adopted into the core curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. Critical acclaim for her work includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, a James Beard award, two-time Oprah Book Club selection, and the national book award of South Africa, among others. She was awarded Britain's prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) for both Demon Copperhead and The Lacuna, making Kingsolver the first author in the history of the prize to win it twice. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has two daughters, Camille (born in 1987) and Lily (1996). She and her husband, Steven Hopp, live on a farm in southern Appalachia where they raise an extensive vegetable garden and Icelandic sheep. 

Reviews for How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This poetry collection encompasses a wide variety of subjects – the author’s family history, world travels, nature, relationships, friendship, death, literature, knitting, and much more. The poems are organized by theme. My primary poetry readings are the classics of the 19th century. I do not read contemporary poetry on a regular basis so I may not be the best judge of its quality. It was not a bad reading experience, but nothing really stood out for me.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a lovely poetry collection! Many of Kingsolver's poems bring newly layered meaning to everyday events. I particularly responded to her poem about knitting/sheep shearing and her love poem. I walk away with a renewed desire to pause in my life, to examine my world, and to love. Kingsolver uses language so very beautifully, that I reread many passages out loud to myself, just to enjoy her luscious phrasing to my heart's content. Her poetry relaxed me and just plain spoke to me. Very pleased!

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Poetry, lives lived, lessons learned. Some like letters, some shorter, all wonderful. How to be married, how to be divorced, have a child, even one on knitting. A short tour of Italy, when she takes her mother in law there to visit her childhood home.There are two, however, that stood out for me. How to be hopeful. Much needed, for many besides myself, I believe. I adored this line, "Sometimes you have to stand on an incline where things look possible."These last two lines in "The forests of Antarctica" gave me chills."You are the world that stirs.This is the world that waits."ARC from edelweiss.