A Nectary of Questions

Guernica World Editions (Guernica World Editions)

978-1-77849-074-3

100 pages | May 1, 2026

This surprising Nectary of Questions lights me up—sets off depth charges in my wonder. Steven Nightingale leads us with whimsy and grace into the realm of the unknowable, inviting us to wade heart-deep in “interstellar eccentricity” and steep ourselves in “sand dunes, beauty, tanagers, canyons, with volcanoes and honeycombs.” Sensual, playful, truthful—what could possibly be more nourishing?

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of The Unfolding and All the Honey The Unfolding and All the Honey

I was stunned by the extent to which every poem in A Nectary of Questions addresses a theme raised by Dickens in prose. It underscores for me the extent to which every great writer (Nightingale, Dickinson, Neruda, Dickens) grapples with the same eternal questions. Read this book and experience your own epiphany.

William A. Douglass, author of Amerikanuak: Basques in the New World and The Starlight Hotel-Casino

All poets interrogate the world: Steven Nightingale takes the essential attitude of the question up and down new and sinuous paths, in tones of praise, curiosity, and consternation. A lively, lovely dwelling in the mystery and wonder of it all.

Alix Christie, author of Gutenberg's Apprentice and The Shining Mountains

We live in a time when we are too quick with our answers, too sure of ourselves, unwilling and increasingly unable to listen to each other and to the myriad voices of the natural world. But in this marvelous book we are offered a delicious antidote to that failure, and an inspiring reminder of the immense intellectual, moral, and aesthetic power of questions to right our relations and renew our ability not only to question, but also to listen deeply. The form of direct address enabled by Steven Nightingale’s probing, playful, and perceptive question-poems takes us much deeper than answers ever could. If Voltaire was right that we should be judged not by our answers but rather by our questions, Nightingale’s provocative queries in A Nectary of Questions succeed in achieving an essential and transformative kind of listening.

Michael P. Branch, author of Raising Wild and On the Trail of the Jackalope

Steven Nightingale never tires of asking, and answering, questions that situate us at the core of our most beloved existence.

Shaun T. Griffin, Poet Laureate of Nevada

Steven Nightingale’s A Nectary of Questions brims with a tender affection for the world. One cannot help but emerge from this gorgeous collection reawakened to the miracle it is to simply be alive—here in the mischievous, messy, wondrous now.

Richard Joseph Nevle, co-author of The Paradise Notebooks