Suzanna de Baca instills a subliminal radiance within her debut poetry collection, You Were Never Lost: Poems from the Tallgrass Prairie. Its contents reflect her accumulated experiences from an artist residency at the White Rock Conservancy in Coon Rapids, Iowa. The 5,500 acres of prairie, woodland, pasture and river valley protected along the Middle Raccoon River have served as a beloved destination for many. It is a natural oasis that resists the continued intrusion of development, and subsequent loss, of Iowa’s prairie lands.
During that residency, the White Rock Conservancy reintroduced de Baca to a 8.5-square-mile microcosm of Iowa’s natural beauty. You Were Never Lost translates the whispers of the winds, the dappling of the sunlight and the songs of its animals into a series of poems honoring de Baca’s childhood friend.
De Baca’s Artist Statement openly shares her core inspiration for this book. “After my friend’s death, returning to this place became both an act of mourning and of gratitude. Walking the same trails where we once wandered together, I noticed the prairie differently. Birds, wildflowers, shifting light, and the quiet rhythms of the land offered a language for grief and remembrance.”
You Were Never Lost is a 53-poem collection lovingly threaded through the magic of a small patch of Iowa terrain. The collection beckons readers to convene with others in their circles and share its poems aloud to each other, feeling the rhythm of de Baca’s compositions. Take this ending salvo from “If you veer off the path”: “you are not the first to wander / you are not the first to walk, without knowing / you are not alone / not in the stillness, not in the turning grass, not in the quiet that walks beside you.”
De Baca’s first-person voice feels like a kindred spirit, allowing the reader to join her in nature, feeling the gently shifting breezes and life-affirming sunshine and collecting the multitude of the prairie’s fragrances.
The elements of grief woven throughout add a tinge of melancholy to this land of wonder. De Baca’s frequent stops to take in her surroundings become a meditation on noticing, mourning and remembrance. It encourages the closing of one’s eyes, an accounting of the sense and reflections on the fragility of life.
You Were Never Lost may make you feel like you’ve spent a summer at White Rock Conservancy yourself, and will certainly give you a more potent awareness of your own natural surroundings. Pick up the collection for an enriching poetic panacea from the chaos and cacophony of today’s world, and emerge with a cleansed mindset.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2026 issue.
