In the tumultuous world we live in, "Words To Breathe By" offers a respite, a sanctuary of solace where readers can find healing and peace. Crafted with profound emotion and fervor, this remarkable anthology delivers poetry for healing, serving as a soothing balm for anyone grappling with emotional or spiritual distress. Hansen's work encapsulates the essence of inspirational poetry, each verse resounding with wisdom and resilience. As readers delve into these pages, they are not merely observers but active participants on a journey toward finding peace. Whether battling the stress of modern living or wrestling with personal demons, this book offers the opportunity for healing and personal growth. From the grandeur of lofty mountains to the tranquility of a silent lake, Hansen’s passion for nature and its calming influence is palpable. The picturesque, vividly described landscapes inspire readers to appreciate nature and its healing properties. It's a poignant reminder of the serenity and clarity that can be found when we choose to escape into nature. This element of the book serves as poetry for mental health, a testament to the therapeutic potential of immersing oneself in the natural world. But nature isn't the only muse in this stunning collection. At its heart, "Words To Breathe By" is a love story. Hansen's poems about intense love towards his wife, Kristen, are raw and unfiltered, revealing the depths of his emotions. Readers are privy to their passionate, intimate bond as if standing witness to their shared moments. These verses serve as a testament to love's transformative power, its ability to heal and rejuvenate, and its capacity to provide comfort in times of strife. "Words To Breathe By" is more than a collection of poems; it's a lifeline, a beacon of hope for anyone navigating the complexities of life. As readers traverse through its pages, they are bound to emerge with a deeper appreciation for the world around them, a profound understanding of love, and most importantly, a better sense of self. This book invites readers to embark on a journey of healing, inspiration, and self-discovery. It's a testament to the human spirit's resilience and the transformative power of words. "She is lounging in sunlight, stretched across a silky white bed. Our celestial work of art has just begun." Immersed in the imagery of light and dark, sun and moon, Hansen’s work is soothing to the core. From the opening poems, audiences can anticipate the color that is a part of each poem’s identity, and though the pieces are short and simple, their depth is in the thought-provoking juxtapositions of Mother Nature and love. Hansen sets the tone for the compilation in “The Arriving Night,” where the blue of the fading sky and the red of the burning sun meet, albeit briefly, in glorious unity. While the imagery is stellar, the narrative prose that poems like “Trees” exhibit is just as meaningful in its philosophy: trees that endure all the world has to throw at them, converting tragedy into wisdom and maintaining their immense majesty for centuries. Perhaps where Hansen excels most is taking ordinary objects like “horse of the imagination,” “God’s jewelry store,” or rain, and aligning them with a purely human quality, such as rain being the cleaning or “removal of emotional debris.” Where nature commands the attention in the first part of Hansen’s work, it is love that consumes the pages of the latter portions. The serene elements of the nature poems give way to the freshness of blossoming love and the pure exhilaration that follows. Many of the poems are undoubtedly an ode to the woman who the speaker wants to love “like God” and who is the reason the speaker feels free from the prison of the mind. Hansen’s work showers bountiful praises on the vivaciousness of the female form as a form of self-discovery, a path to finding one’s self in the midst of the world’s constant chaos. Overall, the poet’s delivery is raw and authentic, allowing the readers to settle in and find comfort in his depictions. — The US Review of Books If postcards could be made into poetry, Words To Breathe By is exactly that. Each poem written and collected by James Richard Hansen is a snapshot of nature; some place the poet visited, captured in his memory and brought home to put on page. The collection is imminently descriptive. At one point, Hansen refers to himself as a city-dweller, Californian, escaping into nature and respite. Words To Breathe By recalls exactly that experience. The nature-inspired poetry in this collection is soft and quiet like a sunset. Then, sometimes, Hansen launches something truly breathtaking; like this from The Road To Happiness, “I was charting my course by the stars but they fell from the sky in an avalanche of light.” Rather than the sense of awe prevalent in most of his other pieces, this one feels like a rawer emotion. The reader is left to meditate as to why this was the road to happiness. There is a riptide