His debut poetry book, Walking Trees and Other Poems (2025) is published by Finishing Line Press. They are known as a chapbook press (perhaps the best known in the U.S. — I have Finishing Line chapbooks on my shelf by Ryan Apple, Susan Cowger, Dave Harrity, and Laura Reece Hogan) but this is clearly a full-length collection.
Peterson’s voice is quite diverse — sometimes writing structured, rhyming poems. Personally, I prefer his free verse, but he also charms me with some of his light, humorous pieces:
------“My doctor said I’m diabetic,
------But here’s what’s even more pathetic…”
He has contributed several times to my Poems For Ephesians web-journal. I was fortunate to see him again at The Christian Century event at the Festival of Faith & Writing this spring. The following poem is from Walking Trees, and previously appeared in First Things.
All Bright Things
At Chartres, we see the stained-glass windows slump
from centuries of gravity, becoming
thicker glass at bottom than the top,
like waterfalls of slow and liquid sand.
In Athens, temples, sculpture, palaces
had first been painted bright as Disneyland,
but when the paint was gone we strangely liked
them bleached and bare like piles of human bone.
And in Jerusalem, Ezekiel wrote,
the Glory of the Lord rose like a cloud,
lingered at the Temple door, floated up
the hill to look back once before the Exile.
So all bright things return to dust and cloud;
the psalmist sang, “Go back, O child of earth.”
Yet in that cloud is rain, and in that dust
is Christ arisen, making all things new.
Posted with permission of the poet.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.
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