About the Author

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Cornerstone Press, 2026.

In Light in the Evergreens, Lex Runciman writes with remarkable clarity and steadiness of attention—to seabirds on windblown cliffs, to the long conversation between artists across centuries, and to the fragile dignity of human life. These poems move between beauty and grief, history and the present moment, asking how we live with one another in a world that is both troubled and astonishing. Runciman is a poet of deep intelligence and humane witness, reminding us that careful attention—to the world, to art, to one another—is itself a form of hope.  

CMarie Fuhrman, author of Salmon Weather: Writing From the Land of No Return and Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, and Poetry

You don’t foresee the best poems. In a way, they all look alike—a family of vast resemblances. But you might, as with Lex Runciman’s poems, forehear them. There is a rightness in their cadences; there is something sacred in their saying. Runciman writes of a heron, “its every ungainly step / a syllable, a languid liquid wingbeat syntax,” stringing together four trochaic feet in that last phrase, and the heron’s locomotion, ungainly though it might be, is so clearly heard it is visible in your mind’s lucky eye as something closer to dance than description. That sort of sonic precision is everywhere in Light In the Evergreens. What he writes is, by definition, what the best poetry is. You can hear it on every page.

Robert Wrigley, author of The True Account of Myself as a Bird

“Lex Runciman takes a “full, clear, compass look” at our world — both natural and human —  and writes with precision and feeling about those things we may lose, and what we have already lost. He celebrates the quieter joys — long love, the flora and fauna of Oregon, a deep sense of community — and makes space for us to do the same. Light in the Evergreens is a delight — thoughtful, generous, and fully present.”

Hilary Menos, author of VOX Wah Wah

“The superb natural imagery of Lex Runciman’s poetry displays an artistic vision filled with focused precision and written in a lyrical language that both engages and enlightens readers. Works from Light in the Evergreens elegantly blend a range of themes related to a celebration of life and how precious the poet finds living in the present to be. As well, he praises the merits of memory through wise commemoration of passing time and aging or when he honors and mourns lost loved ones. Whether Runciman’s sources of inspiration originate in personal emotional experiences with family and friends or are drawn from evocative examples provided by visual artists and his precursors in literature, the marvelous poems in this collection are always completely authentic and powerfully compelling.”

Edward Byrne, author, editor Valparaiso Poetry Review, and chronicler and photographer of The Indiana Dunes project.

Cover image by Judith Bergerson. Find her work at https://judithbergerson.com/