Yesterday Echoes, a new collection of poems by Chris Wood, is a barefoot walk through memory, to feel the pulse of generations in your veins, to be reminded that the sacred often hides in the simplest things.
“Poet, Chris Wood, takes us on a harvest of memories,” writes poet Natalie Kimbell, author of On Phillips Creek, “that are so detail rich they can be tasted and felt like the sweetness of honey and the rough grit of loss.”
In Yesterday Echoes, her poems are “a true gift of remembrance and a tribute to her family as well as Appalachian life. Wood makes us recall everything from pigtails to Zippo lighters and takes a chore like going to the dry cleaners as an adult a passageway to memory. Her chapbook, Yesterday Echoes, is a collection where the present stirs the warmth of the past like a cup of hot tea.”
“In Yesterday Echoes, Chris Wood weaves a tapestry of memory that resonates with the familiar warmth of treasured photographs come to life,” says Wendy Chance, author of The Great Outdoorsy Day!: Storybook. “These poems don't simply recall the past; they resurrect it, allowing us to inhabit those fleeting moments once more. Yesterday Echoes reminds us that our family stories, however humble, contain universes of meaning that shape who we become. A stunning collection that will leave you reaching for your own memory book, heart full, eyes misty.”
“Chris Wood knows her roots,” notes Sandy Coomer, author of The Broken Places. “She carries ancestors in her blood, and in the memories that live beyond her DNA. Just as her father ‘slings the soul of the (honeybee) hive’ into mason jars, so this poet slings the soul of her history into the words of this collection. Though her parents might ‘say nothing, do everything,’ these poems say everything, giving voice to a rich heritage and its harvest of stories. These are luscious poems, infused with a triad of food, faith, and work—and shining in the center of it all, the meaning of ‘home.’”
Chris Wood is a writer and poet whose work explores the intersection of memory, history, and identity through a lens rooted in faith, language, and place. With deep reverence for heritage and the evolving power of words, Chris weaves together personal experience, cultural observation, and historical nuance. From her childhood in Kentucky and currently residing in Tennessee, she draws inspiration from Southern landscapes, etymology, and the often-overlooked stories embedded in ordinary lives.
Her poetry appears in numerous journals and publications including American First Magazine, Salvation South, Dandelion Scribes, and Heart of Flesh Literary Journal. Her work can be found in several anthologies, including Women Speak (2025), Bayou, Blues, & Red Clay Poetry Anthology (2024), Nothing Divine Dies: The Poetry of Nature (2022), and Adult Children (2021).
She is also the author of Word Vignettes: Unraveling the History Behind Every Word, that explores the history, etymology, and cultural shifts in meaning of words. Chris lives with her husband and a lively household of fur-babies, where she balances her writing life with a fulfilling career as a Director in Operations Services for a real estate investment trust.
Learn more at chriswoodwriter.com.